


Cordiform

by Annie Christ (SmokedSalmon)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: AkuRoku - Freeform, F/M, Glam Rock, M/M, Modern AU, Velvet Goldmine - Freeform, jumper by third eye blind plays in the background, much of the character stupidity in this is entirely intended, noncon, rich kid crying, roxas is being haunted by ghosts, terminal illness, they pretty much have sex on vomit, why is axel such an asshole?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:13:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 101,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmokedSalmon/pseuds/Annie%20Christ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxas is an eighteen-year-old high school graduate disenchanted with everything; his parents' money, his private university but especially the prospect of his future. When he goes to perform the rope-less trapeze act off the old iron bridge he finds himself face-to-face with the strikingly blunt narcissist Axel Diamond and his glam rock past. Throughout the ghosts in the woods, the girl with hands for mouths and duffel bags of vomit, Roxas can’t decide if his second chance at life is better or worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Peter Pan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is two years old and counting so the writing quality shifts dramatically. You've been warned.

Whenever the cleaning lady scoured his bathroom Roxas believed it was his responsibility to take a gander at her bulbous backside while she scrubbed beneath the rim of his toilet bowl. The relevance of her age being the equivalent to his own mother's didn't deter him since the ogling wasn't associated with hormonal propensity. It was because anytime this woman bent over her ass earned its own zip code, and the startling sight was enough to make the seventeen year old pause and wonder who on earth could be the Christopher Columbus to her derrière. She had four children so he knew  _someone_ had taken on that unholy task multiple times. Roxas occasionally attempted to estimate how many men had been lost at sea. Had Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain paid this gallant explorer and seaman to take on the Indies? Were many lives swept off the poop deck and into irate waves? Were classless sexual puns really all that humorous? Could Roxas get anymore his age? Honestly, he liked to think there was wiggle room, but that parole was pending.

Answers were nowhere to be found in the immediate now, which was why after Roxas got an eyeful of spandex and panty line, he went on with his day knowing full well his eyes would dart back the moment she returned the next week to take a feather duster to the bottom shelf of his bookcase. By the time he had trudged into the kitchen his mom was struggling to uncork a bottle of wine and gabbing to her fellow housewife on the phone. He had forgotten about the cleaning lady's ass and was more focused on what there was to eat in the house than anything else pertaining to the universe. The first stop was always the cabinet holding cereal with enough sugar to initiate diabetes all while claiming to contain seventeen vitamins and minerals. Roxas contemplated every box, but he shut the cabinet and went to the refrigerator. The fridge was a wasteland meant solely for their chef and the milk for his cereal. Going there always proved fruitless, but every morning he went with the kind of false hope reserved for the holocaust. After several minutes of defeat, Roxas began a pattern of heading to the cabinets, inspecting, stepping over to the fridge, inspecting, and then rinsing and repeating.

"Roxas, quit pacing. You're giving Mommy a headache." Those were the first words Roxas was greeted by, but instead of listening, he continued with what he had been doing. He was close to some kind of food. He could feel it. The food fairies were near, and his mother was whore, so nothing she said mattered.

"His father gave me herpes. I'm going to have to tell the garden boy and his brother." And that was the reason his mom was opening the wine a couple hours earlier than normal. "And then it's going to get out. I can't handle the stress. I'm sure those two fuck plenty of women with rotten cunts. They could blame it on someone else."

Roxas made an offended face at the Irishman on his chosen box of cereal and decided he hadn't been that hungry anyway.

* * *

He went to a private school along the shoreline with a knot of friends who were equally as privileged as him. The only difference between Roxas and his companions was he acknowledged they had more money than the public school attending youth downtown, and they didn't. In their minds, there was nothing beyond the cluster of designer clad individuals that streamed into the educational institution accented with architecture from the Victorian era and creeping vines that had long since wormed their way into crumbling brick. There were private universities with cheaper tuition than his high school, and Roxas occasionally wondered if attending was solely a declaration for his parents' ego because he had never asked to go. It had simply been expected of him and his father's bank account.

Olette pushed a fallen tress behind her ear and stared at Roxas with narrowed eyes. She was scrutinizing, and Roxas could smell her hesitant need to enunciate curiosity. She did this a lot, which was why he continued to stare at his tuna pasta salad as if the noodles had just told him the secrets of the universe. Little did everyone else know the Holy Grail was nestled beneath a portable toilet in Elyria, Nebraska. His avoidance was futile, though. This was the girl that could smell a problem a hundred miles away, and if he didn't blatantly ignore her, then she would jump down his throat without even having the courtesy to ease into an interrogation. Blatantly ignoring Olette was beyond the bounds of possibility, but to him it was worth a shot.

"Roxas," she began as the blond started to shovel food into his mouth so talking would become unmanageable. "How are you?"

"You sound like a therapist." Hayner intervened in an attempt to save his friend from a kind of personal hell only Olette knew how to inflict. "How are you doing, Roxas? Tell me about yourself, Roxas. Were you diddled as a child, Roxas? Do you feel like your mother loved you growing up, Roxas? Do you have sexual desires involving your mother, Roxas? Let me say your name after every sentence in an attempt to make it seem as if I'm seeking a personal connection with you, Roxas."

The way her body language deflated was the telltale sign she wasn't amused. "Can't a person just ask how someone's doing?"

"It's your inflection," Pence chimed in with a smile before burying his face into his drink. "Your ever pleasant inflection."

The foursome was settled around a circular lunch table in the school's courtyard. Winter was on the horizon, and the only reminisce of autumn was the pasty concoction of moisture and decaying leaves settled beneath their booted feet. Roxas wondered why the four of them had decided eating outside was a good idea. His nose was already dripping watery snot and he had seen tomatoes with less colorization than his face, but he seemed to be the only one affected. It was why he didn't say anything. Roxas was never one for being the joy kill, but Hayner would also refer to him as 'bitch boy' for the rest of the school day if he expressed discomfort. He wasn't particularly in the mood for that.

"I'm cool," Roxas finally muttered before reaching over to grab Pence's paper cup of hot chocolate. God, he couldn't feel his face out there. "I didn't sleep much and then Mom was on the phone with someone this morning. I think Dad gave her herpes."

Olette's eyebrows shot to her hairline, and Hayner cackled. She waited for her friend to stop laughing before speaking. "Are you serious? Your dad has herpes?"

Hayner spoke for Roxas. "Don't be surprised. I mean, aside from producing bad music in his basement, his dad's life quest is to fuck as many women as possible. His mom's giblets have been a ticking time bomb since the first six months of marital bliss wore off."

"Yeah," Roxas shrugged as if he was everything but bothered when really he was on the brink of expelling the contents from his stomach all over the sushi Olette's mom had so carefully packed into her lunchbox. He might have laughed had he upchucked on her Philadelphia roll, and he was sure the situation would have been hilarious had it not been  _his_ parents, but that was how these things always seemed to go. "It was bound to happen. I just didn't want to  _know_  about it."

Pence stole back his hot chocolate. "Yo, how did you even find out?"

"She was just right there in the kitchen." Roxas shrugged again before throwing up his hands in surrender. "She was tearing into the wine at eight this morning, and while I'm trying to figure out if I want oatmeal or cereal, she announces it. Some people shouldn't have kids. Half the time I feel like a statement piece. There's Roxas. We have a  _son_  because that's relevant here in the twenty-first century United States where the divine right exists amongst our egos."

"That's sort of gross." Olette stuck out her tongue, childish in her own right. "Your dad should feel like a total jerk."

"He probably doesn't  _care_ ," Roxas said with a straight face. "You know how my dad is."

"True, and my parents are kind of the same. It'd be too hard for them to get a divorce because of their finances even though they're miserable. My mom would try to clean Dad's bank account, and he would rather have people talk about his scandalous relationships with younger women than lose an iota of money."

"Same." Hayner piped up and Pence raised a finger to third the statement.

"But really," Olette's doe eyes locked onto Roxas'. "Are you okay?"

"I mean…" He wondered if he was. "Who doesn't this happen to?"

* * *

His fingernails were scraping along the orange railing belonging to a rusting bridge when he decided his parents had conditioned him to be one of the most thorough liars he ever had the misfortune of meeting. Roxas did his best to console his aching sense of self-worth with rampant pick me up pep talks better left to seminars intended for hopeless forty year olds. He ended up gnawing strips of skin off his bottom lip in response. Dragging his teeth along the already scabbed over Cupid's bow until he made himself wince; it wasn't until Roxas tasted iron and contemplated swallowing his own teeth and tongue did he decide it was time to stop. Sometimes, he romanticized obliterating his own face until his jaw was nothing but bone and skin confetti floating downward like decoration for a child's birthday party because then the lying would stop. That would shut his mouth for good, and his existence would no longer be smoothly articulated sentences containing nothing but feculent cud and all the worthless fucks he had been trained to give. God, he didn't want to care. He just didn't want to care.

His tongue smoothed along his slimy front teeth, and right as he imagined them gone with blown open nerve endings, he pushed a set of fingers through his hair and stifled the urge to scream. His entire existence was built around perpetual containment, and he couldn't even give himself over to an emotional outburst while completely alone. The river coursing beneath the bridge he was standing on and the sky he periodically wished would crush him were the only two things keeping him company in that moment. That being said, even in complete solitude, hidden from his oppressive species, Roxas was at a loss with prickling eyes and burning guts.

"You know, kid. It's pretty hard to concentrate on killing myself with you standing over there making guinea pig noises."

Roxas made a strangled sound before turning around to see something he shouldn't have missed no matter how lost he had been in his adolescent mind. Standing on the rickety railing of the bridge was a man with the stupidest hair he had ever seen. Red porcupine spikes nearly dreaded from whatever kind of filth the stranger had rolled in and surreal peridot eye colorization. Roxas parted his lips as if to say something, but he choked on what he assumed were going to be words. Upon a more thorough inspection, he wondered if he was looking at some subhuman species because that olive skin was too smooth, those God-spun facial features were unnaturally symmetrical, and for the love of all that was holy, no one should have been able to make an elongated chin look so right.

"Keep staring like that." The husky voice was accompanied by the kind of smile implying he knew he was something to look at. "I might not take a running leap off this thing in the name of jadedness."

There were the fleeting couple of seconds where Roxas wondered if he should walk away because this person was standing on a rusted bridge telling him he was contemplating killing himself while wearing one of the most genuine smiles he had ever seen. There was something almost eerie about the situation that made him uncomfortable, and all those stranger danger warnings flashed before his eyes in a single sweeping montage of finalization.

"Are you mute?" Suddenly leaning against one of the unstable supports creating the arch of the bridge, the man began rapidly moving his hands in a cryptic code. Roxas arched an eyebrow. "Because I minored in American Sign Language. So, we've got this."

"I'm not mute." Roxas startled himself with his own voice.

"Yeah." He stopped signing before putting on a smirk and looking Roxas over appraisingly. "I didn't think so. Plus, you probably would've done the dirty work for me and shoved me off this thing had you been able to understand anything I just told you."

"Why?" Roxas found himself looking at the other's hands. His fingers were too long. "What'd you say?"

" _Ha_!" He continued signing for a moment, which was really making Roxas nervous because he had seen construction paper with more spine than what this guy was standing on. "I'm sure you'd like to know."

"If you were going to kill yourself, then you would have already done it," he said all while wondering where his sudden authority over the topic derived from, but he kept going. "You obviously don't want to die."

He dropped his hands, but his smile didn't vanish. "The fact that you're seemingly challenging me about whether or not I want to off myself probably doesn't say too much about you as a human being."

"I don't consider myself much of a humanist."

"See, that right there was about as precious as necrotizing fasciitis."

The familiarity this person spoke with was enough to make Roxas purse his lips, but his defense mechanisms were weak. "I'm not trying to be cute."

"The cutest people never are."

Roxas opened his mouth with all the intentions in the world of retorting, but he was interrupted.

"So, war, gore and bloodshed for that dainty baby face? Your freckles haven't even faded yet and you're hooked into philosophy. That's impressive in a sad kind of way. When I was thirteen, I was still fascinated by the T and A apparatus." The man grasped onto the arching bar and planted a boot firmly down onto his feeble foot support before leaning backwards over frothy rapids. Roxas sucked in a sharp breath when the stranger was only supporting himself with the grasp of three fingers, and the second Roxas reacted, the redhead let out a braying laugh and yanked himself forward. His eyes burned with alertness as he adopted a smug smile and regained his stability. "How about you tell this dying man your name?"

"Roxas Eames and I'm not thirteen. I'm seventeen." He paused but begrudgingly continued, "not that it matters since you're on your deathbed, but you?"

Another laugh and Roxas wondered if the ginger was trying to jab his way beneath his skin. That laugh was like a bot-fly. "Axel Diamond and Eames as in the soul sucking factory uptown?"

"What kind of last name is Diamond?"

By then he was pressing his cheek against the bar Roxas wished he'd use to push himself onto solid ground. "A damn good one. The one good thing my old man did was give me that name."

"It sounds like something you'd see headlining a burlesque show."

"You know, I thought it was a little more drag myself, but burlesque works, too."

"Why not burlesque in drag?"

Axel sucked in air through clenched teeth, seemingly distraught. "I wish I had the shoulders for it, but you're deflecting, kid. You look like your last name would be Eames. That Ralph Lauren, V-neck, sweater is totes for sure this season with a pinch of sophisticated masculinity that's strong enough to give me nocturnal emissions at twenty-three. Tell me your daddy's the motherfucker who's worked all of my friends to the ground for minimum wage. It'll make this moment poignant. I will die knowing my last conversation was with the flyblown spawn of Beelzebub himself, and I will die happy."

Roxas narrowed his eyes, but he wasn't about to defend his dad's factory with a straight face. He knew. "My dad owns it, yeah."

Axel let out a low whistle, superficially impressed. "No wonder you're not a humanist. You're probably a direct descendant of Machiavelli."

"I'm going to leave now." Roxas grumbled and turned as if to walk in the direction he had derived from. "Have fun dying!"

"You don't mean that!"

"I don't even know who you are!"

"Do people like you ever really  _know_  anyone?"

Roxas stopped short and took a second to look over his shoulder. He was soaking in that verbal punch in the dick all while contemplating the outcome of humoring this person. That is, until he personally reiterated the fact that his life was hellishly mundane and Axel Diamond was a breath of fresh air in comparison to his generally lackluster existence. Gritting his teeth for a nanosecond, he stomped his pride like puke through a drain and turned completely back around with his pride wounded. His expression implied he found the situation trivial, but he wasn't about to walk away.

"Why do you want to kill yourself?"

"That was a bold icebreaker." Roxas exhaled in relief when Axel stepped off the rail and onto gravel that crunched beneath his shoes. The way he landed was feline-like, and Roxas was becoming more and more certain Axel was everything but human. "People lesson number one, Roxas. We don't immediately reveal our deepest, darkest secrets the second we meet someone new."

"I think you're an exception considering how I walked in on you about to kill yourself."

Axel gave that some thought before raising both hands in surrender and nodding. "Touché."

"Were you even  _really_  thinking about killing yourself?"

"Has anyone ever told you you're  _really_  insensitive?"

Roxas furrowed his eyebrows, and though he could have sworn he had something clever to say, his mind blanked. "Yes."

"Someone's honest and probably doesn't have very many friends." A corner of Axel's lips curled upwards as he approached Roxas and it was then he became aware of this person's incredible height. The top of Roxas' head would have been hard pressed to reach his pectorals, which left his Napoleon complex with panties twisted until they made a cat's cradle. There was nothing more threatening to him than another man taller than him, which essentially meant every other man in existence without a diagnosis. "You are  _small_."

Roxas could have sworn his spine created a ninety degree angle. "Fuck you, man."

"See? Being on the other end of insensitivity isn't nice, is it?" Axel purposely leaned over before squishing his own face ultimately causing his voice to somewhat slur. "Should I buy you some crayons and coloring books to heal those wounds? They smell a bit  _infected_."

"Get out of my face." Roxas stepped back before Axel could do as he asked. "You're obnoxious."

"Obnoxious comes in many forms, kiddo. You're pretty bad in your own right."

Without an explanation for where they were going, Axel picked up his feet and headed past Roxas who felt inclined to follow after him like an obedient dog. As they walked in silence it was hideously awkward for Roxas who had expected Axel to continue on with his gabbing or at least have the decency to answer his question.

"Why were you all the way out here?" Axel suddenly broke the silence as he fished around in his back pocket. "What do you children do nowadays? Play with Tinker Toys and that strange Frisbee creation. Satan's work those frees-bees are. Back in my day we walked seventeen miles through the core of the earth and called it fun just to walk back barefoot."

Roxas' eyes were focused straight ahead as he tried not to laugh, but it was an internal war that made the Trojan one look like chess. "I was thinking."

"Thinking deep thinky thoughts that only ferment in pubertal little brains, I'm guessing. Don't tell me I'm off the beaten path here. I know I'm not."

"Are you going to mock me the entire time I talk?"

"Ah, that's sort of the goal because your age group takes itself  _so_  seriously, and even if it wasn't the goal you'd think it was. I might as well stake  _some_ claim on your aggravation."

Roxas couldn't help but to prove Axel's point by rolling his eyes. "That's nice of you."

"I thought so, too." He exhaled in exaggerated belief before finally extracting a pack of cigarettes and a cheap pink lighter. "I'm just happy we're on the same page!"

The blond took a moment to cross-examine Axel. Aside from the faintly freakish physical attributes, he was so strikingly normal in every other aspect Roxas had a hard time comprehending the collision of two worlds. In a sense, it was his subjective definition of obscene, and it was then he realized Axel was what his mother would refer to as a  _ragamuffin_. The word had been the bane of his existence since he could take a piss on his own, and it was mainly because she said it so much. It wasn't the meaning or even the fact it sounded as if someone was referring to another person as a dumpy pastry made out of frayed towels, but the repetition of it sliding off the roof his mother's mouth made his skin crawl. To this day she still swept her hand over his hair and claimed he was a  _ragamuffin_ because his blond hair naturally grew out into an obnoxious cowlick he had long attempted to accept. Anytime she decided to refer to him as such, he recalled how she also enjoyed pointing a finger at the kids walking the streets of uptown and saying the word. She also wasn't afraid to call a homeless person one with biblical conviction. He sometimes wondered if she was trying to use it as a semi-homonym but failing without realization or if she was seriously trying to be that damn offensive. Either way, it made him livid.

"My friends and I all have cars, and we ride around and get baked while our parents fuck each other because they're as bored as the rest of us."

"That is some impressive truism." Axel was what Roxas referred to as merciless when the dull tone filtered through teeth. "Is that all you do?"

"I mean, yeah..."

"Seventeen year olds with limitless credit cards and you do nothing but drive around and get high." Axel appeared genuinely defeated while lighting up. "I might as well turn around and take that running leap. My faith in my own species wanes by the second."

"Sorry for not having embarked on life changing quests at seventeen," he acridly murmured. "There's not much else to do, and in case you haven't noticed, things like the  _Never Ending Story_  don't happen, and if they do, I didn't make the cut along the selective line of divine destiny."

"For the love of God," Axel smoothed a hand over his hair and was suddenly working his jaw, smoke expelling from his nostrils. "Tell me you have some kind of hobby. I mean, don't get me wrong. There's nothing abysmal about getting a little fucked up. I mean, I kind of endorse getting very fucked up, but that's a nonissue here. When I was totting around at your age, my friends and I were into everything we didn't need to be in."

Roxas disregarded the last part in favor of keeping his anger collected. "I skate sometimes. Like, skateboarding…"

Amused by the kid's faux-maturity, he smirked. "You're pretty trusting. I bet no one knows you're out here."

Some people were painfully perceptive in the kind of way that startled Roxas because he was hardwired to have more in common with a pile of rocks than the rest of mankind. He couldn't gather connotations, had minuscule experience dealing with sentiments, and at the end of the day, he was a glob of human flesh without connection to anything or anyone. The worst part was that he understood this, and out of the seven billion fucking people in the world, he couldn't seem to sync with a single person beyond the level of forced acquaintance. Sure, Pence, Olette, and especially Hayner all looked at him as though he was this part of their inseparable friendship pact, but they were so disposable. If he woke up the next morning and was told they had all died in a car accident where their skulls had busted on asphalt like dropped eggs, Roxas would roll over. He would roll over onto his side and go back to sleep for the rest of the morning. Maybe he would sleep it off for a couple days, but by the third day he would be wondering who else would throw down with him when he was low on Ultimat or in need of some bud.

"That sounded threatening in the why-didn't-I-bring-my-mace kind of way."

"Hey," Axel gave Roxas the kind of wink that forced him to swallow spit. "You shadowed me. You could have kept your ass on that fucking bridge, kid. Whatever happens from here on out is your fault."

"That's an iota away from being glaringly politically incorrect."

"I'm going to give you some credit." Axel turned around with his hands shoved into his hoodie pocket, and he began walking backwards in front of Roxas. "For seventeen, you've got a quick brain. 'Course you haven't been hammered down by college yet, but I'm kind of impressed. When do you graduate?"

"This summer."

"Do you have a major in mind?" He stopped Roxas short. "If you say Philosophy I'll probably do you the favor of killing you in the woods and leaving you for the elements. You might as well not prolong the inevitability of your future with that degree."

"I haven't given it much thought. I didn't even think I'd make it to graduation."

"Wait a second." He could have sworn there was some semblance of compassion in those green eyes. "Hey, kid, when you were back at the bridge. What exactly were you thinking about?"

"You wouldn't tell me. Why should I tell you?"

That was when he realized, had Axel not been about to do the very same, Roxas would have climbed over that rickety bar and thrown himself to the rushing water and staccato blades cleverly disguised as rocks. The thought of being able to run back and finish what he had subconsciously started made Roxas jolt, and suddenly his joints were aching. Stepping forward initiated charley horses until tears pricked his eyes, and he was all at once aware of an inferno behind his sternum that could have put Dante's works on a children's shelf.

"You've got it cushy." Axel offered him a cigarette, but he declined. "It'll be easier to hide the bullshit."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Think about it this way," he began as he fell back into step beside the blond. "That  _over_ thinking thing you were doing back there? Cut it the fuck out. Stick to ignorant bliss because once your gears start turning they never stop. Once you figure the world out you can't go back. You never want to figure the world out, Roxas. It's a bad place because it's lonely. Way too fucking lonely for a kid."

"I thought the world already was kind of lonely." Roxas had no idea why he was humoring the guy the way he was, but he couldn't stop. Maybe it was the tenor of his voice or how life was seemingly radiating from his irises. It didn't matter. Axel Diamond was one of those talkers that made him comfortable. "I'm a couple months shy of being an adult. Maybe I'm just premature on the whole reality thing."

"You're quite the dusty light bulb."

"Asshole," Roxas murmured.

"Hey, hey," he cut into the rash insult. "Don't take that the wrong way. You've got the right idea. You're in the right country. Hell, you're in the right region, even. Just need to," and he swiped his hands across one another with his cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth, "clean it up. That comes with age, though."

"You said you're twenty-three. You're not that much older than me."

"Five years makes an incredible difference." Axel planted a hand over his heart in mock meaningfulness. "If I can promise you anything it'll be that you will not be the same person five years from now. You will fuck, be fucked, die, be resurrected, snort blood from the grout of bathroom floors, sleep under tables, smoke crack, lie and say you didn't smoke crack, take a trip to China, get worms, drive your girlfriend to an abortion clinic, and sometimes, you'll make it to work on time, but that's not often. Luckily, you're charming and reputably endowed. You're never fired."

"All of that?"

"Take everything I say the way people should take the Bible." Axel sucked smoke into his lungs and opened his mouth into an O-shape only to puff out an impressive ring. "I'm full of metaphors. It gets a little surreal otherwise. Well, except the endowed thing. That's never a metaphor."

"More like full of shit."

"That too on some days."

Realizing they were approaching the parking lot Roxas' car was settled in, he exhaled through his nose before yanking his phone out of his back pocket to check the time. Every week night he had to be home the exact same moment his dad came home in order to have a family dinner. Though his mom was usually drunk off her ass by that point, his dad was never focused on her enough to notice, and if he did notice he clearly didn't care. Dinner conversations always revolved around Roxas' grades, Roxas' scholarship opportunities and Roxas' lack of facial hair. If he was a minute late his dad would be calling him in a spitting rage, and Roxas never could upset his parents. He needed gas money and an allowance.

"Got somewhere to be, huh?"

"Parents…"

"Word." Axel tossed his cigarette aside. "I'm out, kid. Nice meeting you and all that jovial jazz. Maybe someday our paths will intersect again? Keep an eye on the bridges. I'm still pretty hell bent on flying."

"That's what you call it?" But his eyes suddenly grew wide,, and as Axel turned to jog away, Roxas' mouth moved faster than his thoughts. "What if I want to get ahold of you?"

Tossing him a look over his shoulder, Axel was wearing an elusive smile that was faintly inquisitive. The redhead clearly found him amusing for wanting to know. "You've got my name. Names are a powerful thing, and you have resources. Look me up. If you want to find me you will."

With that unsatisfying answer trailing after him like fairy dust, Roxas watched Peter Pan himself disappear as he rounded the corner of poorly trimmed hedges.


	2. Tiger Lily

Blankets were clumped around him in what he commonly referred to as his nest when the red numerals to his digital clock clicked over to a two and a pair of zeros. Roxas' glassy eyes were heavy-lidded as another Feed the Children infomercial flickered in the gloss curving along his irises. As stimulating as starving adolescent children were, he couldn't concentrate on the screen for longer than ten minute intervals, and he continuously found himself pausing to glance out his bedroom window as if hoping for a sign from the constellations. He needed the universe to advise him on what to do with the sticky June night where air streaked down the walls of lungs like refrigerated maple syrup. There was no reason for him to be listless on a Saturday when he possessed the good fortune of a new Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class and more than a couple expendable thousands cushioned in his bank account.  _You deserved it_ , his dad had reassured while handing over a set of keys after his graduation dinner. The man had been earnest, and Roxas wished he could figure out why. His senior year had been a lethargic binge, and the bottles of Pyrat lining the top of his book shelf were a testament to this.

God answered, and his cell phone vibrated beneath his pillow pile. Roxas slid his thumb along the touch screen to unveil the message predictably from Hayner.

" _My bitch, come to me in Uptown. Kegs and virgins anticipate your arrival."_

Uptown was taboo. This was solely because Roxas had been trained by his classist parents to avoid the hooligans surrounding the clustered neighborhoods adjacent the mediocre state school nestled there. The setup was commonplace to the general public in the way that blocks upon blocks of houses bludgeoned to death by sweeping college life and the typical twenty-five and under poverty restrictions weren't unusual. Yards peppered with red Solo cups and untrimmed lawns were the standard. The average twenty year old didn't own a lawnmower, and the concept of power washing away dirt caked on siding never managed to wedge its way between Two-Phase Flow Computational Fluid Dynamics Applications and Methodology & Language Skills. It was the surreal world where someone such as Roxas—who had essentially attended Pencey Prep—couldn't wrap his brain around people not knowing who Rick Owens was.

He contemplated the possibilities before eventually replying with a quick, " _Address, my scrumptulescent sow_?"

A street name he had never heard of popped onto the screen, and he was soon rolling out of bed and flipping on his closet light. Deciding he should consider expanding his wardrobe selection beyond the color black, Roxas plucked out something other than sweatpants and a V-neck and went through rapid hygiene customs. Within twenty minutes he was pocketing his wallet and swinging a set of keys around his index finger. There was the fight to weave his way through the herd of his mother's longhaired dachshund collection that loved him unyieldingly with reasons unbeknownst to him, but once he had closed the connecting garage door on their obnoxious yipping, Roxas was a free man.

He always drove in silence. It wasn't that he had a personal vendetta against music, but Roxas savored silences the way some people sought out messy orgasms. His world was periodically far from quiet, but partying especially required mental preparation. He never lasted long when he travelled and party hopped in groups because there weren't intermissions he could relax through before cycling through another girl, another bong, someone's complimentary prescription. His friends rarely shut up once booze happened, and it had gotten even worse once cocaine had started accompanying it. Roxas tried to pretend  _that_  hadn't happened, but he hadn't been given the opportunity to adopt an imagination as a child, so the reality mercilessly bore into him. They were stereotypes, and he was unexplainably ashamed but without reason to stop.

The building he ended up parallel parking in front of was the equivalent to a picturesque birdhouse. There was no other way for his brain to discern what he was looking at. There were multiple people on the ass end of his age speckled out front and their eyes were immediately drawn to his conspicuous vehicle. Roxas was left feeling obnoxious as he shifted his weight in his leather seat with hands clenching the wheel at the six o'clock position. He should have expected this reaction when the most awe inspiring car within a ten mile radius was more than likely the newest KIA Soul model. At that thought, his eyes narrowed in on the fuel gauge, and he wondered how difficult it would be to asphyxiate himself with his own seatbelt.

There was a sudden tapping on his window.

"Rapunzel, what the fuck are you waiting on? People are already buzzing about the total d-bag with the Mercedes inside. You sure know how to make an entrance."

Yanking his key out of the ignition, Roxas opened the door and purposely smacked Hayner with it as hard as possible, only satisfied when his peer let out a groan while gripping his hipbone. Wordlessly, he slid his body out of the driver's seat, and once on both feet, locked the door behind him. The second he turned to face his fellow blond the kid began gabbing at him as fast as possible just to fill him in on the relationship dynamics going on within the house. Hayner was spewing out names Roxas couldn't put faces to, but he listened attentively as they cut through the overgrown front yard. Within seconds their canvas shoes were dew dampened, but he didn't give himself time to dwell on the minor discomfort as they climbed the steps toward the front door.

"Who even lives here?" Not that it mattered since Roxas had attended parties more than once where he had slept in random beds and vomited on leather couches without knowing who paid the mortgage. It was more or less an attempt to let Hayner know he was paying attention.

Hayner pushed open the front door with a shrug. "A lot of people do, but I'm thinking there are four renters? Could you imagine, man? Our townhouse next year is three times this size, and we thought we were  _downsizing_."

The two stepped through the doorway, and Roxas could have sworn he saw something white, fluffy, and elongated fluidly romp from the side of the 1990s chic couch and into what looked to be the kitchen. Glancing at Hayner who shrugged, they began navigating through the tiny congregations of cliques that had one thing in common, which were the plastic cups and bottles in hand. Roxas easily wasn't a fan of a lot of things, but being in a new place where he didn't know anyone and was solely dependent on a single person not to feel awkward was in the top five. It wasn't that he was socially inept. Roxas was a trained pilot in social settings, but he hated exerting the effort it took to keep up with conversations. The back and forth of faux-interest on both parties was always detectable, and he wondered how something like that could even be natural. It was like lions jumping through flaming rings without the tamer present.

"Hayner!" A man with the blond, double-sided undercut Roxas had seen striding down to runways over the past three years appeared out of seemingly nowhere. He handed Roxas a beer, and he couldn't help but to mentally scrutinize the Budweiser before cracking it open and murmuring a weak thank you. "Who's your pal?"

"Demyx, this is Roxas and then vice versa." Hayner shot Demyx an almost haughty leer, and Roxas was quick to realize his friend had sold him out to who knew how many people. He was essentially a novelty, and the concept made his stomach roil. "He's my longtime chum and soon-to-be roommate."

"That sounded sort of matrimonial, but dudes, don't go to Radiant University. You should seriously come here." He dramatically swept a hand over his hair. "Housing is pretty terrible, but  _I'm_  around."

"Anyone ever tell you that's the stupidest fucking university name in existence?" The sudden voice derived from the couch, and Roxas peered over one of Demyx's broad shoulders. Sprawled out on the four cushion sofa was the person Roxas recognized as Hayner's acquaintance and main connection. Xigbar nodded at Roxas when they made eye contact, and the only thing filtering through Roxas' head in that moment was that Xigbar's eye had been nabbed out in Mexico when a deal went wrong.  _Someone plucked out his fucking eyeball_.  _I wonder if he can stick shit inside._  Which was juvenile, but Roxas had never claimed not to have his moments. "Roxas Eames  _would_  attend Radiant University. That's impressive authentication for the stigma surrounding the bogus facade that's Downtown."

The corner of Roxas' lips quirked upward. "Jealous, Xigbar?"

"Of your self-loathing?" He returned Roxas' smirk with one that was more like a shit eating grin before burying his face in his cup. "Now why the fuck would anyone—"

"Perfect eyebrows, abs harder than a twink's in high class pornography, and a dazzling smile," Hayner listed and Roxas arched one of the aforementioned perfect eyebrows when an arm slung around his shoulders. The sudden shift in weight made his knees buckle. "The kind of genetics reserved for the Third Reich, man. It makes up for the internal stuff we all deal with, yeah?"

Demyx pointed towards the crowded stairs. "Too high for this to head in the direction it's gunning for. One of you creepy dolls please tell me you're willing to fork over for something _shiny_?"

Roxas gave a contemplative hum before dragging a hand along the back of his head. The thing about rolling right then was that he was exhausted from a couple nights before. He had to wonder if he even had the serotonin to keep up with everyone else. The knowledge behind it made the effort seem as if it'd be a redundant attempt, and he knew it didn't take a biomedical scientist to figure that out. Of course, he was having the kind of day where he was willing to try anything in order to cleanse his system of his life's stank.

There was an abrupt screech from the kitchen followed by a shattering glass that breeched his train of thought, and at the collection of sound, Demyx abruptly bound halfway up the stairs before yelling. "Diamond, your rat is scaring the vaginas again!"

"She's not a rat, you vindictive virgin! She's a domesticated mammal of the type Mustela putorius furo, and she's a lot smarter than you, cockroach."

"That insult was displaced. I'm everything but a cockroach! You  _clearly_  know me so well!"

The next structure of words was thick with agitation. "Like the back of my bitch slapping hand!"

"You could have considered that a compliment." Roxas suddenly broke into the conversation with a raised volume, his own voice weird to him. "Cockroaches survive everything, and if you want to make yourself sound as smart as him, then they're called Periplaneta americana."

"Futile assistance, stranger!" The disembodied voice was at the top of the stairs. "If you'd wanted him to impress me, then you would have said Blattaria!"

Maybe it was because Roxas lived in a land where his coping mechanism was evading all sources of consequential memories, but he didn't take into consideration the remarkable name Demyx had shouted upon climbing the stairs. This was why he was unreasonably flabbergasted when a pair of mile long legs began descending the stairs, and the lanky appendages ended up being connected to a torso with the kind of head only Helen Keller could have forgotten. At first, Roxas wanted to be surprised and sprint from the living room because this was the man who  _knew_. Axel Diamond—as if he could really forget that kind of showgirl name—was the sole person who had seen him on the brink of mental implosion.

This was all difficult to process because, on top of it being Axel Diamond, the man was shirtless with the kind of jeans slung so low on his hips that everyone and their mother knew the drapes matched the carpet. The peculiar part was that the shock factor had nothing to do with those defined hipbones accenting the kind of navel Roxas would have happily dragged his tongue along while completely sober or the way he rolled those broad shoulders with the kind of smile bright enough to simmer corneas. No, it was the approximately foot in diameter pentagram drawn on his chest in what looked to be strawberry syrup, and Roxas would have sworn the smear through the middle could have only been accomplished by a tongue. This left him in an awkward place because  _oh—fuck, stop staring like that. Jesus Christ, I'm the biggest faggot I know in all the land of Faggotry_.

"The Devil ain't pleased with your interruptions." Axel's words were like the smoothest coffee, and Roxas was tempted to bite his tongue off because he was comparing the tenor of someone's voice to a latte.  _Hormones, stop. He's hot enough to eat a fucking birthday cake off of. I get it._  "I was in the middle of an important human sacrifice when you interrupted me with your heartrending stupidity. Now, where's the person who was trying to make you  _not_  look like an ignoramus?"

"Over here!" Hayner waved before pointing at Roxas who was still stupidly gaping and trying to remember how lips went back together and that whole jaw functioning thing worked. Roxas shrugged out from beneath his arm thanks to the obnoxious edge. He was borderline embarrassed. "Biology major to be right here! Roxas  _Eames_  right here!"

The second they made eye contact Roxas could tell Axel's memory was on point. The corner of the ginger's mouth quirked upward, and he was even more certain the man recognized him because there was this imminent kismet bubbling within the pit of his stomach the second a glint appeared in his amused, green eyes. Then again, that issue could have probably been related to the fact Roxas hadn't had a single thing to eat within the past twelve hours, but he wasn't about to dumb down the melodramatics. Roxas' chest was thick with a strange smoke that wasn't the kind he could recreationally benefit from, but recreational smoking suddenly sounded nice along with an entire fifth of vodka. He could not handle this. Where was the fainting chaise lounge and smelling salts? He was about to hit the John Deer green carpet, and he was  _delicate_.

"Then the heavens opened up and the lovely Ella Fitzgerald floated downward singing Blue Moon because those are the nicest eyes in the world, kiddo."

Roxas realized talking was a socially acceptable thing to do in that moment. "Did you spend the last six months coming up with that?"

Axel snorted. "Even if I did it was plenty less painful than the thirty seconds it just took you to come back with that half-wit, snarky question."

"You two know each other?" Demyx planted a hand on Axel's bare shoulder and continued before either one of them could answer. The reluctance Axel displayed when tearing apart their eye contact was someone ripping fabric with bare hands. "But, dude, put Putrid in her cage. She's kind of gross, and this place is a big enough sausage fest. Stop scaring off the women. You're only  _so_  charming."

"The ladies love Putrid. She's my token child." Axel clicked his tongue and whistled. Perfectly on cue, an albino ferret with a bell collar scampered from the kitchen and up the remaining stairs to meet her owner. Axel was quick to bend down and scoop her up. "Look at her, Demyx.  _Look at her_."

He leaned back when the redhead began shoving her in his face. "I'm looking. I'm looking."

"Gorgeous, eh?" And, as Axel continued with his taunting, Roxas found himself carefully examining the ferret's preoccupation with the sweet and sticky design slathered along her owner's skin. For some reason, he couldn't help but  _want_ her to go for it and bite him. He wasn't sure why. "Roxas and Roxas' friend, how long are you guys hanging out tonight?"

Roxas exchanged glances with Hayner and shrugged before returning his stare to Axel. By then, the man was making kissy faces at Putrid who was seemingly kissing back, but Roxas had a feeling she was more interested in the scent radiating off of him than affections.

Hayner spoke up first. "We've only got a few more hours until the sun comes up."

"Word." For a man with a seemingly well-trained brain, Roxas was befuddled by the ineloquent response. "Let me finish with the ritual upstairs and then we can smoke a bowl before going to get food somewhere because I'm fucking starving, and there's nothing in the house."

That was a demand. Roxas suddenly wondered if there was a sort of hierarchy among the people in the house because Demyx wasn't even questioning the plan. Then again, Roxas was also a subspecies of his kind where relationships interwoven throughout even the closest of friends were never completely trusting and there was this strange enthusiasm for analyzing motives. Pursing his lips at the realization that he was going to be stuck with his current company until mid-morning, he decided he was going to need to make the best of it i.e. drink himself into puke soaked oblivion.

He was graceful at vomiting. That was what he tried to tell himself anytime he found himself stumbling toward the closest trashcan with the burning knowledge that stomach acid would be scorching the interior of his throat within seconds. The thought of the discomfort always tore him to pieces because it was something he wanted. The all-consuming sensation of heaving shoulders and contracting abdominal muscles that forced him to wretch until tears were in his eyes. He drank for the sole purpose of upchucking as much of his stomach as physically possible, and he didn't care. He just dwelled on it to the point of putting himself in a trance. That was why—a couple hours after Axel had vanished into what he had referred to as his sanctuary—Roxas didn't notice said redhead pushing open the bathroom door. Roxas was forcing up beer into the porcelain shitter. Sometimes, he imagined the entirety of his stomach getting lodged in his throat like a pink, fleshy, mangled sack of human tissue.

"Your poise is impeccable." Axel's words forced Roxas to choke on his own acrid saliva, and he side glanced just in time to watch the man wet a wash rag. His entire chest was this sticky slate of glistening skin. "Didn't your mommy and daddy train you better than that? That's what preparatory schools are based around, right? Training children to hide their boredom induced addictions until they can be shipped off to reformation Ivy League schools?"

"I'm not going to an Ivy League," he sputtered out even though that wasn't the thing he should have addressed. Roxas never had understood his own selection methods, but he had a feeling he secretly would agree with Axel if given the time to really  _think_. "I'm either majoring in Biology or Law at Radiant this fall."

"How  _disappointing._ " But Axel said this with a good-natured smirk as he wiped away as much funk as he could. "At least Dartmouth sounds cool in the low budget gay porno kind of way. Anyway, you've been dry heaving for the past few minutes. You're probably in the clear, kiddo."

"Yeah." He had to wonder where his vocabulary with all its impetus derived from. "Probably."

"You know, maybe you should go to bed and skip out on the food?" He looked Roxas over with the kind of hypercritical stare strong enough to force the blond to his feet in the name of pride. Of course, the abrupt vertigo had him dropping to his knees and spewing dandelion bile into the toilet. "Jesus Christ, you're a hot mess. Were you like this pre-suicide attempt or are these post-effects of you coping with your survival?"

Roxas' oblique glare was followed by another gag, and a burp was soon subsequence. "Post-survival."

The redhead's lips pursed and he screwed up his eyes as if in deep thought. "I'm not sure if I should feel responsible in some way."

"Alcoholism runs in my family."

"My name's Roxas and I am an alcoholic.  _Hi, Roxas_." He paused. "Okay, we'll be fair here. My name's Axel and I am an excruciatingly attractive man in his early twenties with a penchant for sciences.  _Hi, Axel_. Good, okay. I feel that we now have a deeper understanding of one another, and the scale is balanced—okay,  _really_ , are you done there? You  _can't_ have anything in your fucking guts if you're puking up yellow shit."

"Go away," he muttered while wondering if he could fall asleep on the toilet seat.

"I'm not even going to begin to point out the improper etiquette that's telling someone to go away in their own house.  _Raggio di sole_ , and I hope you don't mind me calling you that because even if you  _do_  that doesn't mean I'm going to stop, you should seriously go to fucking bed. I'll let you sleep on the cushion at the end of my mattress reserved for the night's pick from the harem."

"Are you serious right now?"  _Of course he isn't, fuck ass._  "I  _am_  fine, and you're sending me these snarky, mixed, mother hen messages. Am I  _supposed_  to find any sincerity in what you're going on about? Because I'm having a really hard time."

"That you are."

"Excuse me?"

"Having a hard time." Leaning down, the man caught Roxas' bicep and yanked him to his feet. "All good? No more stomach acid fucking up those bleached teeth?"

He contemplated putting up a fight, but he was tired. Not that those feelings were new or anything, but the fatigue was growing to be physical, and honestly, Axel was bigger than him. He was toned in all the right places, and though Roxas probably could have stood his ground or at least yanked his arm out of the hold, he was to the point where being guided out the bathroom like a scolded child was perfectly acceptable. All Roxas truly wanted at that point was to brush his teeth and get back into his bed with images of starving children flitting across his plasma screen. That was why he was frustrated with himself for shooting down Axel's offer to sleep. Had he not been so stubborn someone could have directed him to a corner on a bedroom floor, and he would have happily dropped dead on spot.

"I thought you found some dark place and died for the night!" Hayner caught Roxas' shoulder the second Axel let him go.

He just wasn't that lucky.

They ended up skipping the bowl, and Hayner ushered him towards Axel's car, which just so happened to be a new KIA Soul. Axel himself had yanked on a V-neck that had been tossed over the back of the couch before throwing a set of keys into his back pocket and following suit. As the group began yanking open doors and climbing onto seats Roxas wondered if he could go to sleep or even better; maybe his life would be timely for once. They could end up in a tragic car accident. Being pavement jelly was looking significantly less painful than the headache he was going cross eyed over.

"It's a good thing I hate alcohol," Axel announced as he pulled out of the driveway. "We'd be noshing on some serious marinara sauce right now, otherwise."

Roxas blinked before pressing his cheek against the car window, and he wondered why he hung out with Hayner when they always ended up being dragged through the stupidest of situations. He decided there was no point in thinking about it, and with a breathy exhale, Roxas watched buildings drag through his vision like yellow lines. With blurry surroundings he didn't have anything to say as casual conversation floated throughout the group. Hayner was more than capable of guiding the conversation alone, which was what he did all the way to the twenty-four hour diner with its cheap food and even cheaper waitress gimmick.

"You're looking shittacular, Roxas," Axel announced.

Dragging his fingernails along the tabletop with only a cup of steaming coffee settled beneath his nose, Roxas was drowning in the kind of brain splitting agony known only to the brimstone configured structure that was Beelzebub's fart permeated manor. A jackhammer's trilling composition was ricocheting off the interior of his skull like a bullet in a tin garbage can, and he wanted to die. Roxas was positive this wasn't news to himself, and he probably shouldn't have toyed with comparing his want to rid his substance punched fatigue with death, but he did anyway. Society had taught him to play down death until it occurred.  _Old habits die hard_ , and he nearly groaned at his own tacky pun.

"I wasn't aware we were attending a beauty pageant." Staring into the mug, he wanted to dip his teeth into the black substance. Roxas was an iota away from slicing off his tongue, stabbing it with a fork, and plunging it in his coffee before trying to swallow it down. Without the assistance of his tongue, he was bound to choke on a combination of congealing blood and muscle chewed into the consistency of hamburger. "I'm not out to impress."

Demyx took it upon himself to pour syrup on Roxas' untouched pancakes. "That's a great way to approach life if you're planning on being Kraft singles forever."

"Not that he needs to try," Hayner grumbled as a shoved a piece of bacon in between teeth. "I should've gotten pancakes. Fuck this French toast. Pancakes are overrated anyway."

Axel leaned back as if someone had told him his mother's posterior was Jupiter's twin sister. "Pancakes are  _never_  overrated and French toast is for senior citizens."

Roxas snorted and finally began picking at his food. "I like French toast."

"Hold on," said Axel as he extracted his cellphone from his pocket and began prodding at the touch screen. "I'm telling Xigbar he needs to set up the stake and make sure we have enough lighter fluid because we're tying you up when we get back, and I'm going to watch you burn."

"It's an honor to be considered worth the trouble. To think you find my misdeed relevant enough for a ceremonial burning."

"Don't be such a self-aggrandizer, Roxas." The redhead reached over with his fork and stabbed one of the pancakes as if he was trying to spear a fish. "I just like watching things burn to shit, and it wouldn't be ceremonial. You burning would be a statement to anyone who thinks they have the audacity to voice their breakfast food opinions in my presence."

He watched as Axel dragged the disc-shaped carbohydrate onto his own plate. "How tyrannical of you."

Axel readily agreed. "I'm pretty controlling, but I'm pretty sure that's in the fine print of my DNA. I can't recall a time I haven't been that way. There's no psychological root to it either. I just am."

There was a fleeting silence as everyone munched away at their food, and Roxas looked past Demyx's shoulder and noted the sun rising through the diner's front windows. Wondering if he was sobered up enough to drive home, he was ready to walk in on his mom's hired chef chopping away at the family lunch's prep work with coffee brewing on the counter and annoying miniature dogs nipping at his ankles for treats. As exasperating as the animals could be, Roxas didn't mind piling up in bed with the herd and taking a snooze. They were unconventional heated blankets.

"You guys could sleep over," Demyx murmured before taking an elongated sip from his cup of orange juice. "I don't know about you two but I'd probably fall asleep at the wheel trying to drive all the way to Uptown after booze, a food coma and no sleep."

"Word," Hayner said before Roxas could refuse, and he was a millisecond away from take his butter knife and skinning his friend alive. The last thing Roxas wanted to do was couch surf at a stranger's house. "We'll stay. Don't want Roxas wrecking his new Mercedes."

If looks could kill, then Roxas' stare would have pulled a Vlad the Impaler and wedged a foot in diameter spike up Hayner's ass.

When the bills were paid and the idle chatter regained its rapid fire rhythm they returned to Axel's car. Roxas could practically smell the impending doom as they approached his vehicle, and he wondered if he could pull a Regina George and have Hayner push him in front of a bus. God knew he was jealous enough to at least think about doing something along those lines, so he had faith that—with a little coaxing—he could be murdered and pretend it wasn't assisted suicide. Sure, Roxas could have left. It wasn't as if he was stranding Hayner anywhere since his friend had his own car. They were also both legal adults who had basic authority over the decisions of their lives, but it was instilled in him to keep up appearances and refrain from making situations awkward. It was protocol to rapidly smooth out social wrinkles, and he couldn't break the custom. Being a proper faker was all he knew.

Figuring out where to sleep was the last thing Roxas had considered as a potential aneurysm inducer, but when they stepped through the front door of Axel's house and began parting ways in hopes of finding blankets, he wondered how uncomfortable the beer stained carpet would be if he put a towel down beneath him. Blankly gazing at a corner in the living room as if genuinely contemplating the place as a resting place, he was pretty sure the original misconception of the earth being flat had more curve than his current demeanor.

"Bet that harem cushion is looking mighty nice." Axel draped an arm around Roxas' shoulders, and he laughed when the blond visibly tensed up. "Look, morning glory. I'm trying to avoid a serious confrontation with you, but I kind of want to talk to you, but like, be real about it? No bullshit, kiddo."

Roxas turned his head, and it was then he realized Axel too had the faintest of freckles scattered across his nose. His dark complexion made them blend from a distance, but since they were but three inches from each other's faces, he had a chance to take it in. The striking part was how the seemingly dense green of his eyes was splintered by weaving trails of yellow, and Roxas' tongue went dry again. He somehow managed to hate himself even more because of it.

"Are we going to talk about bridges?"

"Do you want me to be honest?"

Roxas thought on that. "No."

"Then we're not going to talk about bridges."

Glancing back over at the corner, he shrugged Axel's arm off his shoulders and began the hike up the trash ornamented staircase. "Fine."


	3. Tinkerbell

Sometimes, when someone is sitting in front of a stranger and ripping the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes that isn't the brand they smoke in silence, they manage to hit every confessional booth in the city. Roxas crinkled his nose as he attempted to flick the shrinking cellophane off his fingertips, and when Axel leaned forward to snatch the shrinking plastic off his shaking hand, the blond did everything in his power not to retract as if someone had threatened him with a clenched fist. A stare off between them ensued because Axel had noticed, and Roxas wanted to know why his tongue was a perpetually stunned mole. Without unending pressure to boost his social instincts, the teenager was fighting off rushes of what he believed to be idiocy. They were accompanied by surges of nausea and dying children.

"What's the story, morning glory?" Axel's words were accompanied by a small smirk. "You don't have to word vomit what's on your mind. You standing there was the kind of awkward that made my viscera curdle. I had to get you out of there. You were a burning orphanage and people were tossing crisped infants off the top story balcony. The balcony hovers over cement, Roxas. It was a gooey mess and epidermises were flaking."

"That's disgusting," he grumbled and ripped away foil. "Really fucking disgusting."

"Blistering organs." The taller of the two sat down on the bed next to him before glancing at a decorative throw pillow. Roxas was certain it had belonged to a family of rats before making its way onto the mattress. "And that's where you're sleeping. Putrid told me she doesn't mind."

His words were dead. "Your harem?"

" _That_  pillow is in the washing machine because I run a sterile establishment. Thank you."

"Did you have to bleach out the strawberry syrup?"

Axel snorted. "Shout works just fine, and aren't you observant?"

"It doesn't take a lot of observation when you have a pentagram drawn on your chest."

"Religious symbols are constructed by society to be distracting and bring forth attention. The only thing capable of capturing your attention faster would be the yellow and red McDonalds signs on the highway. God or the arches, they asked, and Jesus wouldn't blame you for picking that Big Mac because he's the good guy and understands that not-so-secret secret sauce is on par with holiness."

"It's just thousand island dressing."

Making an expression of horror, Axel exhaled in artificial disbelief. "I'll wash your mouth out with soap."

Twisting his lips to the side, Roxas had abandoned the cigarettes by his knee. "Are you religious?"

"I mean, aren't all philosophy majors dedicated to singular theocracy?"

Sitting there for a moment, Roxas wondered if then would be an appropriate time to call Axel out for having previously told him that such a chosen major was essentially a death wish, but he remained tight lipped. Instead of speaking, he glanced over the man's face without an inkling of an idea what to say. His fingers were picking at the dark fabric of his jeans, and for a split-second, his eyebrows furrowed. There was an oddness about being in a stranger's bedroom, and Axel's bedroom was something that would stain his memory the way grass bled onto white soccer jerseys. It was a skidding fall with broken skin, crumbling fibulas, and purple bruises swirling into a twinkling nebula of yellows.

There had clearly been a motif what with the psychedelic paisley tapestries and strewn around knickknacks inspired by Indian culture. Roxas had to wonder if Axel drew inspiration from a girl who referred to the hippie chic Bible that was Urban Outfitter because that was definitely gold glitter smeared across the vanity mirror, and yes, those pants were metallic rose. Every item splayed out on shelves in uncoordinated clusters appeared to have been manufactured with the intent to seem as if they'd been hand selected from flea markets. Though he wanted to amuse himself with the idea, Roxas couldn't see Axel antiquing.

"Tell me something about  _you_ ," Axel announced to the ceiling before throwing himself back onto the mattress. "And then I'll go to sleep."

"I have nothing to tell."

"That's a rather bleak way to sum up your existence to another person." He paused. "For my senior year talent show my best friend and I sang Take On Me and we got first place because we were the only ones who signed up. Now that you know that I'm going to sleep."

Axel stood up, yanked off his shirt, and with jeans still on, he made his way to the side of the bed he preferred before collapsing onto his stomach. Roxas was still sitting up when he watched the man set an alarm on his phone, and he wondered why this was happening in the first place. He didn't sleep in strangers' beds, and he didn't think it was one of those situations where he was necessarily being forced to sleep in someone's bed. Axel didn't give off the kind of vibe implying he'd wake up in a situation where he was hanging upside down with shackled ankles and a whip made of steel ripping down his spine until he was a filleted open fish with intestines hanging like party streamers. Then again, he had mentioned being a naturally dominant person, and Roxas pursed his lips at the possible implications. He wasn't sure if he found that enticing or horrifying, but he was pretty sure his inexperienced side was pushing for the horrified edge of the scale. He wasn't to the point in his life where he could balance it out much. Roxas had the sexual authority of a Sarah McLachlan commercial.

"Hey, sunshine," Axel suddenly murmured into his pillow. "Go to sleep or something because you sitting up like that is making my nerves churn. It has a serial killer flare to it."

Roxas laid down, but he didn't immediately sleep. Instead, he wondered about the porcelain elephants sitting on Axel's desk in a neat row and why he hadn't just drove home.

* * *

Something clattered beside his head when he woke up, and when his eyelids peeled open and the sun bleached the blue from his sockets, he saw a cork jar, pink tube of glitter, oil and a bottle of water. Following the arts and crafts supplies, there was a face daringly close to his own, and he wished he hadn't immediately recognized it. Axel wasn't something he could rip from his memory like a poster off a wall. He probably could have gone brain dead, and the gravelly tenor of his voice would've been the solely familiar thing that forced him out of a hopeless coma, which was weird. It was weird because he had no idea who Axel was beyond a last name and suicidal tendencies, and to be honest, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know anything else. Alarms were flashing and he could practically see the EMTs running up stairs and tripping over ferret toys.

"I was with my little sister earlier today," he said with a serious tone. "She showed me something."

Roxas snatched his phone out of his pocket and fumbled with the touch screen for several seconds before finally getting the time to reveal itself. Groaning when he realized the time was closing in on four in the afternoon, he wondered if his sleeping schedule could be pissed on anymore. Already he had been waking up past noon, but this was ridiculous even for his standard. His headache wasn't lightening the mood either. In fact, the jackhammer making love with his brain was becoming sticky with a side dish of raunchy, and he was in agony. He wanted to crack his skull open and lick the fluids up for breakfast.

"Remember when you were thirteen and the world was against you?" Axel sat down on the floor beside the mattress where Roxas was still waking up. "You hated yourself more than anyone else could ever hope to, and you were almost content with the self-loathing? Well, my sister is thirteen and then some."

Roxas was still bleary eyed. "I just woke up."

"She deals with her issues by artfully crafting feelings jars."

The blond exhaled, but he arched an eyebrow and gave Axel an expectant look because he didn't want to get up yet, and really, who was he to push aside someone with a tube of pink glitter? Catching his cue, Axel snatched the contents off the nightstand and began shaking flakes of glitter into the bottom of the jar with a neutral expression. As he did this, Roxas wondered how someone could've been graced with the kind of features Axel had without the genetic obligation to steer him in the direction of modeling. It wasn't conventional beauty, but that was what made him so perfect for the world where retirement came into play before hitting the third decade of life.

Axel suddenly stopped and pursed his lips. "So, Roxas, how many feelings do you think you have?"

"Give me a scale."

"On a scale of one to What's Eating Gilbert Grape."

"Boys Don't Cry."

Axel hummed and brought the jar closer to his face for inspection. "Are you asking me to dump the entire container here or what? I'll do it, but the point of this exercise would become void. Then again, I'm not a certified therapist, so you're not handing me a signed check in order to fax the psychologist my recommendations for your psychotherapeutic drugs."

"I'm not sure if this is supposed to be scale size or a model because if it's scale, then we'll need a swimming pool and an order directly from the manufacturer."

Not answering the implied question, Axel took it upon himself to shake nearly half the glitter into the jar. "The feelings in this jar are awe inspiring."

"You're making fun of my feelings."

" _Mn_ —affirmative."

"No, it wasn't a question. I'm aware."

Axel dragged his tongue along his bottom lip and Roxas watched the wet muscle with a disenchanted squint as the other choked back a laugh. When there was apparently an appropriate amount of glitter dispersed, Axel uncapped the water bottle and poured just enough so the cork would be able to fit without causing a glittery overflow. His fingertips were speckled in flakes of light catching pink, and Roxas' eyes focused on the way skin worked over joints and the thumb pressed the cork in as securely as possible. He wondered if the top needed to be sealed with super glue, and he wondered if the mattress was a strait jacket because he was struggling to move and screaming at nurses about how his mother's snatch was a shrine to a virus, but there he was in blank stillness. He abruptly decided he hated his mother, and there was no refuting that. His mother was dumpster scum, and he was the product of aged skank and meshing genitalia.

"You shake it," Axel said. "And you set it down and watch the glitter fall. When all the glitter hits the bottom you're no longer upset about whatever life's tossed your way. It's a method parents use on small children, especially emotionally incapacitated kids with sensory issues, but you can bet your ass I'd endorse the executive decision to force them on everyone."

"Do you really believe they work?"

"Probably better than pill gnashing, yeah." Axel placed the finished craft project on the nightstand and stood up to brush glitter off his thighs. The specks floated off him like fairy dust, and Roxas used an open palm to suddenly force his torso upright. Staring straight ahead, his mouth was sticky, his body ached, and his throat was sore from an overexposure to the stomach acid he'd spent the night before burping up. He reached for his eyes and began rubbing flakes of gunk from the corners. He wiped them off on the jeans he wished he hadn't slept in and sighed.

"Your Hayner friend zoomed out a couple hours ago. That's what Demyx told me, at least." Axel opened the door to his room. "You can leave whenever, and you might want to drop the guy a line because I'm pretty sure he thought I shoved you into the Iron Maiden I keep under my bed. It's for when the harem visits go painfully wrong and the situation needs a quick fix."

"It's hard to tell when you're joking."

"Rest assured that wasn't a joke."

The blankets were soon pushed off his legs, and Roxas pocketed his phone once he was on his feet. He had slept with keys in his back pocket, and right when he was about to take a jog out the bedroom door, he also snatched the feelings jar off the tabletop. Shaking it for good measure, he watched the glitter only to notice the contorted view of a glass curved Axel then leaned against the door's frame. When he brought the bottle down just enough to see him without vision skewed by glitter and water, the man was giving him a Mona Lisa.

"Are you interested in serial killers or just moronic enough not to catch the insinuations there?"

Roxas attempted to remain straight-faced, but it faltered into a minimalistic smile as he walked past Axel without any intention of thanking him for the bed to sleep in or dragging him out of the bathroom he had attempted to condemn himself to. The two exchanged glances and Roxas did his best not to turn into a slack-jawed mess radiating everything but grace. Axel was one of those individuals who looked at people and put them under the kind of spell involving whale noises and seizing, which was an exaggeration, but Roxas was both sexually oppressed and repressed. A lump of maggot infested SPAM could've given him bedroom eyes at that point, and he would've coyly looked back while waggling his fingers. He was in a bad place in his life, and Roxas wasn't the kind who could defend his desperate nature.

"My heart just fluttered into a field of daisies, Mr. Baby Blues. You smiled at my irrefutable cleverness."

"That's what you call it?"

Axel didn't follow Roxas down the stairs, but that didn't keep him from talking. "Oh, I sincerely apologize! I meant my irresistible charm!"

"You're generous with your vocabulary, Mr. Diamond!" Roxas yanked his keys out of his pocket and disregarded the standing bodies he strode past. " _Oh-so_  very generous!"

"Be my Scarlett O'Hara, Mr. Eames! Say you will, and I'll run down those fucking stairs and sweep you away!"

"Too bold!"

"You never struck me as a man with dainty taste!"

"I've never enjoyed black coffee!"

Without realizing what was happening, Roxas walked out the front door with a laugh pulling from the back of his throat, but he abruptly halted and glanced over his shoulder. The door was shut behind him as if a gust of wind had done the dirty work for him, and in that moment, he sincerely hoped he never saw Axel Diamond again. There were certain people in the world he avoided. They were the people who understood and gave him reason to pick at the gore he cloaked with a bright future he had been handed on the day of his conception. The kind of people who informed him he was real and stupid and probably needed an entire shelf dedicated to feelings jars with glitter spanning across the entire rainbow. Beautiful people with knowledge who simultaneously strode ahead with both their heart and mind interwoven, and Roxas wasn't constructed to carry the weight they brought. He knew he was the type that meandered in his mind and walked the paths others paved for him because there was human conditioning to blame. No one had left him out to dry, and Roxas had never been given reason to fight for himself, so he had no way justify starting now.

He drove from Axel's place to his house where he packed the bare minimum into a leather overnight bag and escorted himself back to his car. There was no point in leaving a note behind because Roxas knew his cousin would call his mother whenever he decided to sleep. The world and Roxas never fought, but when he realized he would never be close enough to start a war with it, he decided those were the times when he needed to disappear to his cousin Naminé's beach house.

The beach house had once been her husband's, but after the couple had divorced due to an affair, she had won the property in the settlement. Though the town had looked at the couple's falling out as something predictable and another throw away marriage meant to stain what lifelong unions used to stand for, Roxas knew better. He had spent countless nights with a wine drunken Naminé watching her cry into a glass and soak up tears with the heels of her palms because she had gone against everything her parents had begged her not to only to find herself belly up without any aspect of her life on track. She had gone to college for painting knowing full well there weren't many career prospects associated with the major, and upon graduating, had been forced to beg her mother to help her find a job with a low grade designer. She had married her college lover even though her father had advised her to do everything but, and after a lavish wedding meant to outdo every girl on the brink of wedding planning, the man of her dreams was caught red-handed in his studio with a cute and very underage barista from Uptown. Naminé had been pregnant by that point, and the icing on the cake was when the stress from her divorce caused a late term miscarriage that had shattered her beyond immediate repair.

Roxas wasn't sure why he spent so much time at the twenty-six year old's house when he knew the place was doused in negative energy. Maybe it was the naps he took on the beach where he cleared his head until he had again convinced himself nothingness was more proactive than free thoughts or maybe it really was Naminé. The girl with a talent she had dreamt of honing was the most human thing he'd ever had prolonged exposure to, and in a lot of ways, she made him feel loved. Unlike his mother, Naminé wasn't too preoccupied to thoughtlessly drag her fingers through his hair when she rambled about the effects the moon had on people. She taught him how to cook simple foods when rain brought on gusts of salty wind and angered the sea, she listened to every word that dripped from his tongue like a tipped jar of honey without dreaming of interrupting, and she meandered through her house barefoot while reading him snippets of Maya Angelou's  _I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings_.

"Are you hungry?"

He saw those words coming before she even opened the front door. There would be coffee brewed, a painting drying in the corner of the living room that connected to both the kitchen and dining room in a single open sweep, and something would either be in the oven or on the stovetop. Roxas was her refugee, and she seemingly could sense whenever he planned on showing up for a warm quilt and someone to talk to. That's what it always boiled down to, and they both were on the same page, same sentence, same word when it came to the truth about his visits. He needed an ear, and Naminé was more than willing to fill the void for him because she'd never been able to do the same at his age.

"I haven't had time to eat today," he murmured as he walked inside with his bag's strap slung across his chest. "I was sort of busy."

She was wearing a green maxi dress and with nothing on her bare feet as she shut the door behind him. Frowning at the door when the scent of booze and sickeningly sweet incense wafted off of her vertically challenged cousin, Naminé refrained from digging for details. Instead, she followed him into the kitchen where he had sought out a bottle of water and Advil. All of these things were dead giveaways to what he had been up to, and she reluctantly chalked it up to his age.

"You could stop for five seconds to eat  _something_."

He opened her cabinets and grabbed a box of clubhouse crackers. "Look at me. I'm eating. I'm about to stuff half this box down my throat, and I'll have taken in the daily recommended amount of calories. I'll have met the nutritional standard of a privileged American white boy, and you'll weep for me and whisper to yourself,  _'Yes, bless his heart_.  _Roxas ate clubhouse crackers_.  _He did it.'_ "

"I'm going to try my best to excuse that by telling myself smart ass tendencies are an Eames thing."

"It's genetics," he said while struggling to open the packaging. "I can't help myself."

"You're going to need to eat more than crackers." Naminé meandered over to her refrigerator and opened the door. "I was going to make cream of asparagus soup, but that's probably not filling enough for you. I could roast chicken breast, too."

Roxas popped two crackers into his mouth before speaking. "Seriously, I'm fine with just crackers."

"Crackers aren't going to do much for a hangover."

"That obvious, huh?"

"Have I ever told you you're the king of conspicuousness?"

He shrugged and rolled his eyes while chewing. "No idea what you're talking about, sweet cousin of mine. I've always been confident in my lying abilities."

"That's another Eames trait, right there."

"What's that?"

"Bullshit."

Roxas grinned and watched as she removed chicken wrapped in brown butcher paper from fridge and plop it down on the countertop. As she went about her relaxed cooking routine he was so familiar with, Roxas took a moment to wonder how this Naminé was the same girl who had once been so reserved during Christmas dinners and Thanksgiving celebrations. She was the gorgeous poster child for Downtown. She should have been someone's porcelain doll housewife. She should have had a discreet affair with her gardener while she fed off her husband's bank account, and she should have had five children, but she was everything but what she  _should_  have been and Roxas admired her for it. Somewhere along the line, Naminé had traded solid ground for shaky uncertainties, and though the universe had turtled on her, she admitted she was still happier as she currently was than living the life she had led beneath her parents' authority. Roxas periodically wondered how she had found it in herself to take the running leap off the cliff and into murky waves. The girl hadn't gotten her feet wet. No, she had practically drowned herself.

Roxas didn't tell her he had puked again until she finished making him eat. He was sitting on her back porch with a half-finished glass of Chardonnay in hand, and he hated himself for telling her because she stared at him with doe eyes loaded with distress and compassion. He wanted to savor every bit of her love until he was drunk off the affection all while simultaneously contemplating holding her head under the waves until her lungs died burning deaths. She knew everything about him, and it was terrifying. No one was supposed to understand he had more facets than the pieces of paper he considered his friends. When he was leaned over his knees with sunken shoulders and a complete disregard for what he was obligated to feel, Roxas furrowed his brows and wondered if it was okay to cry into bent legs with her hand settled between his shoulder blades. He couldn't convince himself he wasn't alone in a world where only the girls rubbed their knuckles raw with acid and teeth, and he couldn't convince himself anyone would understand what he did had nothing to do with aesthetics.

She watched the bathroom closer and held his hands when his fingers were cold and raw, and she asked him about things completely unrelated to the thoughts racing through her brain. Her words were consistently soft, and she looked at him in a way that was reassuring and helped him fight off the urge to hide away on the bathroom floor like a centipede. She was a pillar for when he remembered the collections in his closet and beneath his bed, and on occasions, he wanted to ask her how she had done it. Of course, he never was able to articulate words to the point of outright seeking advice.

"Maybe you should go on vacation with me in a week or two?"

"Hayner can't get his head out of his ass long enough to get anything done with our house, and I don't want his mom making the executive decisions on my furniture. I'm stuck here."

"I'm sure she wouldn't do a bad job."

"I'm not interested in cottage chic."

"You can't live in a world of black and white, Roxas." She finished her own glass before exhaling. "Maybe some color would do you good?"

"I think I look pretty good in black and white," he stared at the shoreline before shrugging. "There're people who're colorblind and live completely content lives."

"That's all they know, though." Naminé stared into her cup as she swirled the collected droplets around. "If you can make the time, then I really think a break would do you some good."

"It's not like I do much of anything to begin with. Of all people to need a vacation," he grumbled and drained his glass. "That's a joke."

Roxas spent the next two days surfing Naminé's couch and sleeping on the beach with a turned off phone and absolutely no interest in tuning into the rest of universe. There was sand to be baked to a crisp on and a brain to defog, and the only thing he ever missed while hiding away at Naminé's was porn and the convenience of crawling in between the legs of a girl who probably knew more about his family than he did. His visits were groggy conversations about his want to take a year off from college and spend his free time camping in a state park and masturbating to the sound of chirping crickets. He told her the stories about Hayner and him touching each other's dicks in the woods behind the playground during elementary school, and he couldn't figure out why his best friend had kissed him in that heated sloppy way sixth graders do in the back of a dark bus after a soccer game. Hayner was straight. Roxas was straight. That was the end of that road, and when he was done with the topic, Naminé handed him a bowl of salad and made a point to keep him occupied until she was positive his food had digested.

"Your dad has been trying to call you," Naminé said after checking her cellphone for text messages from his mother. "He's apparently threatening to shut your phone off."

Roxas rolled his eyes as he shoved a spoonful of white chili into his mouth. He was settled at her kitchen table with his feet kicked up and a bottle of water balanced between his legs. He was on his last clean t-shirt, and when that happened, there was always an impending doom associated with having to leave. The sound of crashing waves would revert from reality to a yearning in his blood stream and an ache in his joints. He'd have to return to his bedroom with an activated phone and connection to every person he'd had a conversation with that lasted longer than twenty minutes.

"He'd never shut it off. Dad wouldn't know what to do with himself if he couldn't use every speck of his free time to breathe on the back of my neck." Roxas chewed as he turned his phone on. "Anyway, I've been meaning to ask you something."

She chewed with a keen stare. "Mhm?"

"Have you ever hung out with Uptown kids?"

"I did in high school," Naminé spoke carefully. "Why?"

"Do you think it's a big deal for me to because of who I am?"

Naminé's expression made Roxas grow suddenly very fond of his food. It was no mystery she saw him as a socially ill-informed infidel more so than not, and when she made it apparent, he morphed into a kicked puppy. The two exchanged looks for several seconds. Roxas' were accompanied by shrugging and flakes of fear, and hers were pokerfaced and laced with disappointment. He was certain Naminé was keeping tabs on anything related to his communal stupid, and he wasn't sure if it was annoying or embarrassing.

"Roxas, you're human, and so are the people in Uptown. There's nothing about the two areas that somehow make them lesser than your or you better than them. You derive from the exact same sperm and egg foundations, and if you want to mingle with Uptown kids, then go for it. You're too smart to think what your mom and dad pay property taxes on defines your social limitations."

"I like the people there better," he admitted. "I don't think I like my friends."

"If you don't think you like them, then they're not your friends to begin with. You don't like the people you associate with is what you're saying. Just because your dad is having an affair with Hayner's mom doesn't mean you're obligated to live with him and be chummy, Roxas. Do what makes you happy, and don't surround yourself with people who make you miserable. It's a waste of your time, and they'll pull you down."

Roxas dragged his tongue along his bottom lip as he stood up to take his bowl to the sink. "Are you happy?"

There was a short pause between them, and he wondered where the audacity to ask such a personal question had derived from, but he had the right. Naminé knew him like the back of her hand, and she coddled his darkest secrets like babies freshly pulled from the womb. She was aware in so many ways, and for once, he wanted to know, too. If she was going to tell him to do exactly as she had done, then there was absolutely no harm in him asking about the outcome. In his mind, he assumed she was miserable, and he wasn't sure if asking her had been an act of maliciousness or if he was being genuine. Roxas wasn't sure what he had done, but he regretted it.

"Yes," Naminé said, evenly. "I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life."

Roxas wordlessly rinsed off his bowl, but for some reason, he was smiling.

* * *

For someone who didn't like his friends, Roxas spent most of his time with them. Aside from Hayner, Olette was the one he periodically found himself going on adventures with, but the good thing about her was how her jaunts were mild. Mild in the stress department, that is. When it came to humiliation, wanting to punch his own dick in an attempt to gain medical leave, or taking a running leap off the top of the Empire State Building, then those departments were expert mode with a game glitch making it impossible to quit without starting over. If he accepted an invitation from Olette, then he had to soothe his nerves beforehand because it was an all-day event. They didn't just go out for lunch so he could listen to gossip poorly veiled by concern. They went out to lunch, spent three hours at a museum, went shopping, and she always spent thirty minutes being indecisive about where they should go to dinner. Sometimes, she claimed she didn't want to be seen, and then other days, she wanted to be seen. In reality, she always wanted to be seen. The only saving grace with Olette was how she was sweet.

"So," Olette's fingers were gripping the wheel of her father's sky blue BMW. "I know what we need to do today. I think it'll benefit us both."

Roxas was waiting for the inevitable. "Any surprises?"

"You would be the person capable of ruining the surprise of me telling you what we're doing is a surprise."

"It wasn't intentional."

She grinned. "It never is with you."

Once she pulled out of the driveway, Roxas watched the world sweep by. Through the dullness that was their town during the middle of the day and onto the main stretch of highway lined with fields of nothingness, Roxas only grew faintly concerned about where she was taking them when the pair pulled off onto a dirt road. Glancing over at Olette, she kept her smile constant when the road led into the woods and through a never ending path of twisted wilderness and summer green trees. Without realizing what he was doing, Roxas was leaned forward and looking around the abrupt change in environment with genuine interest and awe. There were trees scraping the sky, and he had never seen such a multi-hued display of flora before. For a split-second, he wondered if they had been driving for days because there was no way something like untouched wilderness could be close to home.

"There it is!  _Finally_!"

Olette's exclamation made Roxas blink out of his haze, and he realized they were approaching a wide open field with poorly cut grass that was high enough to hit ankles. There were bonfire circles left unlit and speckled about in mass quantities, but Roxas' eyes were drawn to the clash of human beings throwing themselves around beneath scorching sun with barely any clothing on and only stripes of paint dragged across their bodies by fingers and swiftly moving palms. There was music and trunks of cars left open to hold the coolers of beer, water, and food, and Roxas wondered why Olette and brought him to a festival of people he didn't know who were drinking themselves into sloppy messes before the sun had even considered going down.

"Don't look at me like that," she said through laughter when Roxas attempted to ridicule her with a stare. "Hayner would've gotten sloppy drunk and hit on everyone, and Pence just wouldn't have been fun. Who else was I supposed to bring? All of my girlfriends are in Europe with their parents, anyway."

"Who are these people?"

"I'm not really sure." She shrugged as she parked her car beside the ones that weren't being used as makeshift tables. "They all go to the state school, though. They're fun. This is so much more fun than sitting around someone's pool, and you know it. Come on, Roxas. Have fun with me? You're even dressed for it."

Roxas stared himself down and realized he had worn shorts and Pumas. He had to wonder if she had implanted a chip in his brain and set up the entire situation months in advance because Olette should have known better, but clearly, she didn't. She wasn't letting Roxas go home, and the second she stepped out of the car and yanked off her shirt to reveal a tangerine bikini top, he realized there was no going home. Roxas was trapped in a field full of strangers dancing with body paint soaking into their skin, and he could already tell there would be no designated driver.

"Shirt off, Eames!" Olette had morphed into a completely different person, and Roxas wasn't even sure how he was supposed to react as she pushed up his t-shirt until he took it off himself. "You have more clothes on than me, and that's not okay!"

In a rush of being dragged away from the sanctity of her BMW, Roxas found himself shoved near someone's beaten down car where the paint was stacked in tubs. There was absolutely no method to the madness of dragging hands over a friend's body and creating designs with fingertips, and without realizing it, Roxas had fallen under the spell of Olette's smile where she was undeniably happy about the jagged green line across her forehead and the splatters of orange and blue she had managed to toss into Roxas' hair.

"Roxas!" It took Roxas a second to realize who was screaming his name when he began chugging a can of Budweiser beside Olette, but his brain soon clicked and realized it was Demyx. "Fancy seeing you here in all your pasty glory. Have you ever even  _tried_  to grace the sun with your presence before now?"

Roxas gave him the finger as he continued chugging because he was pretty certain the beach had given him color. When he was done and Demyx had stopped laughing at him, he spoke up. "I'm a fucking flower."

"Your pretty little friend must have threatened you with dental surgery to get you out here." Demyx smiled at Olette who had wrapped an arm around Roxas' bare waist, and it wasn't until he pointed across the field did he realize someone had artistically drawn a stickman with an impressive endowment on Demyx's back. "There's a lot of water over there, so if you get dehydrated and die it's your fault."

"What's this even for?" Roxas asked before taking another long pull from his drink.

"Would you believe me if I said it's a fundraiser for Leukemia research?"

"Underage drinking and partying until kids are incapable of driving straight?" Roxas shrugged at his own words. "I just thought these foundations had stricter morals."

"Diamond has never believed in conventionality." The taller blond ran his fingers through his sweat dampened mullet. "But this is important to him."

Roxas stopped hard at the mentioning of Axel's last name, and it dawned on him that this was a private fundraiser. Wondering where the head honcho of the entire event was, Roxas scanned the lineup of cars for an ugly KIA Soul, but there was none to be seen. Obviously, Demyx had caught onto his searching stare because he grabbed Roxas' shoulder and used his finger to redirect the kid's vision to the far end of the field.

With olive skin glistening from a combination of sunscreen and sweat, Axel's arms were firmly wrapped around a girl's waist with her back pressed against his chest, and he was spinning her around. When her feet returned to the ground, he fell directly back in time with the group of people surrounding him, and though they were dancing to their own beat and yelling lyrics at each other, each individual had a striking different personality in their movement. For someone so tall and lanky, Axel was surprisingly fluid and absorbed in the moment with the cluster of human bodies that were all inebriated and breathless, and Roxas was captivated.

"Jesus, he's an idiot," Demyx said, but he was smiling. "Are you two staying for the bonfires?"

Olette glanced over at Roxas. "Yeah, totally."

He had almost glared back at her, but before he could even do so, Olette had grabbed Roxas' hand and guided him to the center of the field where a cluster of people were spinning themselves around like children trapped in the bodies of adults. There wasn't an ounce of promiscuity between anyone, and all at once, every person on the grass was best friends with whoever they came in contact with, and names didn't matter. No one knew where everyone lived or what business their families were associated with. No one cared about the brands on anyone's body or where they had purchased their cars. Roxas and Olette were standing in a safe haven where Eames meant nothing, and with the sun kissing their shoulders, the two grabbed each other's hands and coated themselves in the color of unified rhythm, and Roxas took a moment to consider the possibility of genuinely liking Olette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Walk the Sun's 'Anna Sun' music video.


	4. Lost Boys

Someone had punctured his lungs with a bendy straw and puffed him up like a juice pouch. There was an exchange of endearing looks with a girl he claimed to hate only seconds beforehand, and he was dragging is fingers down the sides of her painted hipbones with a peculiar hypersensitivity where he could smell the grass beneath his feet and radiate with the sun's rays piercing his flesh. The scent of sunlight was sweet and thick like the pungent laughter whooshing into his ears, and the in sync words burst his ribcage open like the swinging doors to a restaurant's kitchen. There was organic confetti spraying forth from the in between of every person's pectorals, and Roxas had to wonder if this was humanity. When they were stripped down and given a chance to scream at the top of their lungs with their panting souls, what was revealed was a cluster fuck of wildflowers choking the weeds. There was lavender beneath his skin, and gerberas were sprouting from the tops of Olette's feet as he dragged his fingertips along her flattened stomach.

Axel didn't see Roxas until the blond was zooming down a hill of sludge as if sliding into home base. At first, he believed what he had seen was a drug induced figment of his imagination because he had expected life to make sense, but after considering his life, he decided he should have known better. There was no reason for the blond boy from three nights ago with a stiff upper lip and unrelenting posture to be the very same person covered in paint and river scum, but the second Roxas disappeared into the depths of the river with a splash, Axel paused and took a gratuitous moment to look straight ahead and blink. Of course, this self-indulgence was interrupted by a brunette girl screaming Roxas' name with shrieking laughter and sliding after him at break neck speed. Her laughter rang for several seconds before disappearing into green water, and without thinking, Axel's paint coated skin decided to take on another layer of filth as he initiated the running start to follow.

"The paint is about to run into your eyes." Olette reached out and swept her fingertips along Roxas' eyebrows. "There you go."

A group had decided to go swimming before the sun went down, and there had been a barefoot race through contorted trees and beneath a canopy of swaying leaves. Hands had gripped the base of tree trunks and used them as bases to gain momentum, and Roxas' palms were sticky from sap. The sensation of a shade cooled path and dusty dirt smacking beneath his feet lingered even when he allowed himself to sink beneath water. There he heard nothing, and for split-second, Roxas wondered if being completely submerged was the closest to home he had ever been. Lights flickered behind his closed eyes, and he could still see splotches of sunlight reflecting off sun-kissed skin as bodies weaved through a forest's maze.

Roxas' attention was diverted from her face when another splash caused murky water to rain down. He had been avoiding Axel since arriving, but it was easier said than done when the redhead was the main attraction. The way he articulated his speech and gave every person addressing him his undivided attention was as soulful as it was daunting. When someone touched him, his arms were soon slung over their shoulders, and he never outright laughed, but he was perpetually amused by the conversations he engaged in. Axel was friendly to the point of it being off putting. At least, it was off putting for Roxas. Everyone else practically lathered his presence on their hands, and he was the kind of human being who could cleanse someone with a conversation. Axel was handcrafted soap made with oatmeal and lavender, and Roxas hated himself for comparing another human being to soap, but he had to finish out the metaphor by comparing himself to Victoria's Secret bubble bath. One was both charming and useful. The other was marketed and nonessential.

"Roxas," Axel's voice dragged out the blond's name, and he wondered why he couldn't sound like that. His sex appeal resembled a trigonometry final. "This sort of thing wouldn't have struck me as your jive. Enjoying your time with us lost boys?"

Olette seemed surprised the two knew each other, and Roxas gave her a stare implying it would be in her best interest to refrain from opening her mouth about the entire thing. She pursed her lips in an attempt to bury an inquisitive smile, but she respected him enough to simply stare Axel down. Before she had to pull him aside, Roxas could tell she found him attractive, which was a turnaround when her history with men was evaluated.

"It's not bad." He shrugged only to immediately wonder why he tried to talk to other people because it was all fake. He was nothing but a piece of plastic that couldn't inflect its own speech, and he was brainwashed. Roxas wanted to eat his own teeth and choke because dying right then would have been significantly less embarrassing than consciously existing. "Sort of unorthodox, though."

"We're a bunch of heretics." Axel swiped a clump of leaves off Roxas' shoulder. "A pack of wolves rolling in the mud and abandoning reservations, but I appreciate you two coming out. Who's your pretty girlfriend?"

Roxas was beat to the punch by Olette. "I'm Olette, and he's  _not_  my boyfriend."

"And she says so with swift adamancy," Axel said, a corner of his mouth quirked upward. "Olette, please tell me why you're obstinate about not being Roxas' girlfriend. There wasn't even hesitation there."

"Oh," she glanced over at Roxas with a sheepish smile. "We've been friends for years. It's just platonic."

Axel's laugh was dry, but his friendly demeanor remained. "Word, but you seemed offended."

Put on the spot, she faintly parted her lips, and her mind was running a mile a minute. "I don't like it when people assume I'm dating someone just because we're the opposite sex and together."

"Which is valid frustration, but handling it as gauche as you just did can send mixed signals to other people. What if I had been interested in Roxas, and he had been mutually interested in me, but because of your apparent abhorrence to the notion of being his girlfriend, you sent the signal implying he has some defect? There's a completely invalidated red flag that doesn't do anyone any favors."

"Roxas  _isn't_  gay."

Axel released a low whistle before using his hand as a visor against the setting sun. Looking toward the sky, he pointed and was seemingly following something as it fell far off in the distance. "That ball didn't get knocked out of the park. It flew into the sun."

"When do the bonfires start?" It was Roxas' awful way of diverting the conversation from its previous topic. "Right when the sun sets?"

The redhead dropped his hand. "When the sun sets we play hide and seek in the dark."

Olette made an incredulous expression. "That actually sounds horrifying."

"It's one of those games that can get too intense."

Roxas furrowed his eyebrows, but he didn't have it in him to express his discomfort with the idea. More people were rolling down the muddy hill in order to wash off the itchy paint flakes, and it wasn't long before Axel's attention was sucked up by all the tanned college girls with their paint speckled messy buns and waterproof mascara. They hounded him, and Axel flirted back until his pick of the litter had her legs wrapped around his waist, and his hands were doing untold things beneath the river water. By her clipped laughter and tightening grip on his slickened shoulders, Roxas knew Axel's hand had slipped beneath the bikini bottoms. She was a brunette with smoldering coffee colored eyes, and Axel Diamond was finger fucking her while he simultaneously flirted with her best friends. Roxas had never felt as small in his entire life.

"Let's go over to Demyx," Olette suggested, and she tugged Roxas away.

* * *

Hide and seek brought back memories of nursery school and indulgent nannies, but when Demyx and Roxas found themselves lined up beside one another at the edge of the woods, those memories rapidly dissipated. Olette's attention had been caught by one of Axel's friends, and so there he was on his own about to run blind into a forest he didn't know jack shit about. Obviously, it was a terrible idea, but he was feeding off other people's excitement, which was making him reconsider every alarm blaring in front of his face. Even though everyone else was looking at the two picked it men as if they were carrying axes rusted over by previous victim's blood, the scent of anticipation was riper than a steak left out in the summer sun. That was why, when the okay to hide was given, no one hesitated to turn on their phone's flashlight application.

Roxas crept through the woods with a breathless follow up. The initial running had died down, and soon everyone had fanned out into the designated hiding area. There was a small patch of woods considered fair game, but the farther he crept along, the larger it seemed to become. Maybe it was the darkness, but there was a significant disconnection from the rest of the crowd approaching him as his soccer shoes crunched down high grass and twigs. There was supposed to be a small field beyond the woods, but he never came across it, and though he understood he needed to turn back, the blond couldn't bring himself to stop walking. The darkness was tunneling around him, and he was being drawn toward whatever was at the end of the woodlands. Even when the trees grew dense, Roxas didn't look back, and he stopped giving the time any attention. There was nothing significant there for him anyway. If he died and returned to the earth like compost, then maybe he could exist in peace as the nutrients for mangled tree roots.

The woods evaporated, and there was a moonlit path sprawled out to greet him as he stepped free from the consuming darkness. Sandy dirt erupted around his ankles with each step forward, and Roxas soon realized the path led to a straight drop off overlooking the river and distant forests on the other side. He was a hundred feet above jagged rocks meant for gutting the ill-willed such as him, and everything could be seen. For once, the water resembled midnight blue, but the longer he stared, the blacker it became until he believed the concept of atoms and molecules had shifted and the element oblivion had been created. If he jumped, then there would be the absoluteness of nothing. There was something calming about not being able to see the bottom, so he continued to stare downward. He wished he could tilt his head back and savor the stars spreading across miles of seeable night sky. There was an unending universe above him, but he couldn't bring himself to appreciate anything but the hopeful ending below, and he wanted to pour his organs out on dirt. He would become food for the maggots, and he would be useful.

He sat down with his legs draped over the edge, and he wanted to go missing. Sometimes, he wondered if missing would stop the urge to disconnect from his body entirely. Digging his fingertips into bathroom grout wasn't as satisfying as he attempted to tell himself. The Ziploc bags piling beneath a box spring and beneath his hangers draped with designer labels were mocking him, and he was alone. No matter who was seemingly tangible Roxas could dig his nails beneath skin and pull open the curtains to reveal the ethereal reality. Not a single human being he had met to date was capable of rooting into, and the constant solitude was draining. He was the only plant in the garden in a clay pot, and the world ridiculed him for it.

"That is the worst hiding place I have ever seen."

Roxas exhaled so hard he had to scramble to grip the ground, and though he believed his equilibrium evened out enough to remain seated where he was, a pair of hands shoved themselves beneath his armpits and yanked him backwards. His heart was still racing when he was freed of the grip, and for the first time since he had appeared in the clearing, he tilted his head back.

"Seriously," Axel said while leaned over Roxas with his hands planted on his thighs and an arched eyebrow. "Were your eyes genetically engineered in a lab? Were there some Joseph Mengele injections done after he failed to successfully sew you to your fraternal twin?"

"You've seen me without a shirt on all day." Roxas had always believed his appearance to be lackluster. Blond hair and blue eyes were the biggest cliché known to man, and it had fallen out of vogue long before he was born. It wasn't a matter of finding himself ugly. He was just plain. "Notice any earthworm scars?"

"Unlike  _someone_ ," he began as he sat down beside Roxas. "I lean toward refraining from staring at people. Otherwise, it tends to leave them self-conscious, vulnerable, and paranoid."

Roxas decided gazing straight ahead was in his best interest. "I wouldn't know."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if someone was staring at you, then you wouldn't realize it because you're one of those people who left his awareness on the dark side of the moon."

Trying to prove him wrong, Roxas turned to look at Axel with a listless expression, but he lasted five seconds before looking away again. Instantly, he was willing away the burn of his stare and internally squirming. The only thing racing through Roxas' fogged brain was variations of  _holy fuck, how did he catch onto that_? It wasn't as if Axel had any reason to focus in on him. Then again, Roxas took a moment to consider the possibility of canceling out someone's suicide giving two people the right to invest a smidgen of interest in each other. He wished that wasn't earnest justification for tolerating Axel's presence, and he wished he actually felt obligated to stick around with Axel Diamond, but that was cruel fate for him. He actually  _liked_  Axel's word vomit.

"Are you a seeker right now?"

"Diverting, excellent, but no, someone tripped, so we took a quick intermission. Olette couldn't find you and asked me to look since I know the area, and I figured you of all people would be somewhere where falling to your death was an option." Axel suddenly exhaled, and it was almost a sigh. "I used to take walks here with my little sister. Back when spending time with me was not only an option but a privilege."

A conversation rooted in their personal lives was a nauseating concept, so Roxas averted the topic. "You have a lot of freckles."

He had never wanted to kill himself with as much vigorousness in his entire life, and Axel had not signed up for the sympathy boat. The secondhand embarrassment on Axel's part had the redhead suddenly pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing, and Roxas wondered why he stifled conversation to the degree he did with Axel and Axel only. Typically, he could bullshit his way out of a wet paper bag, but there he was making himself out to be possibly the most socially inept human on the face of the planet. He was one more stupid gesture away from signing away his life and resorting to redoing his parent's basement, so he could fester in a sunless universe of self-loathing. He would spend his days masturbating to soft core lesbian porn in hopes of finally finding boobs attractive, crying his self to sleep over marathons of film adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels, and eventually, he would become the sole proprietor of a lucrative sex shop specializing in the recreation of animal genitalia. His bank account would flourish, but his dick would be perpetually flaccid.

"I like this spot," Roxas said after his flighty pity party. "You've really been here before?"

"You've found one of my favorite spots on this property, but it's far from the designated hiding area. Why did you even keep walking? It should have been obvious you were in the wrong area after fifteen minutes of walking."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "I walked that long?"

"Depending on your pace. I was gunning it here because it's dark, and if you don't know the area, then you're at high risk of hitting a drop off. Wouldn't want to have to send a canine squad out here to find your corpse." Axel suddenly stopped and stared ahead for a moment. He was contemplating. "The day I first met you on the bridge I came here."

"Why would you come here after almost jumping off a bridge? I didn't want to be anywhere two feet above ground for weeks. My front porch still gives me anxiety attacks."

He released a sound Roxas mistakenly thought was a half-finished laugh. "Just because you interrupted me on a bridge doesn't mean you cancelled out my need for self-annihilation. You're a cute kid. I'll give you that, but that's a super ego if I've ever seen one. Be careful. First, you'll believe the world orbits around you, and before you know it, there'll be an entire nonexistent solar system. What a letdown that would be when you grow up enough to realize absolutely no one gives a shit about your thoughts or feelings."

"That's caustic," Roxas said, suddenly smiling.

"I disagree. It's universal. It'd be far more impactful if it wasn't the norm."

"Are you sure you're not just bitter?"

That was when he genuinely laughed, and the way it seemed to vivify the sky had Roxas wondering if the world truly could revolve around someone. "I'm an optimistic realist."

"An optimistic realist who tried to jump of a bridge." For some reason, Roxas couldn't break his smile. "Make more sense while you're at it."

"I was optimistic I'd feel better, and realistically-once I hit those rocks-I'd die and not feel, period."

Roxas quirked up an eyebrow. "Then why are you still here?"

"If one thing hasn't changed about you since we first met, then it's how rude you are."

"I've never claimed not to be." Roxas' features softened. "Why did you come here?"

"To finish the job." Axel was so matter-of-fact Roxas wasn't sure if he should find it off putting. "Because the odds of a blond high school kid making weird noises behind me were improbable, and I wouldn't feel guilty about scarring someone."

"But you  _didn't_  finish the job."

"Let's take a moment to praise your perceptiveness."

Roxas ignored that. "Why not?"

There was an extended pause between them, and he carefully watched as Axel rolled his jaw in thought. For a few seconds, he didn't think the redhead would even respond to his question, which was understandable. Roxas was perfectly intrusive when he wanted to be, but he wasn't ignorant enough to believe people would always succumb to reciprocating his jerk wad inquiries.

"I don't know."

Axel stood up, and Roxas watched with a look of interest until a hand extended for him to take. Arching an eyebrow, he reluctantly allowed Axel to yank him to his feet, and for a split-second, he wondered if hands were capable of growing moist within three seconds because it definitely felt that way by the time he was flat on his feet. Rapidly letting go of the other's hand, Roxas smoothed it through his blond locks and exhaled before removing his cellphone to check. There were four text messages, and he had no intentions of reading any of them until he unconsciously did so. He hated his phone. It regularly connected him to every human being he hated and without thinking about it, Roxas abruptly turned around and launched the piece of technology off the cliff with an unnecessarily hard throw.

"That must have been one hell of a text message."

His heart was hammering. "I still want to jump. If you weren't here, then I probably would've jumped."

"Then why don't you? I won't tell anyone."

"Because even if I fucking did I'd always come back."

He kept his back to Axel, and he exhaled before walking away from the cliff backwards. His chest was heaving, and he wasn't sure where the adrenaline had derived from, but he liked the idea of someone who could keep secrets. When he was beside Axel, he turned around and began striding towards the woods with a set of fingers dragging along the back of his neck. Eyes were lit by anger, and he wanted to shove his hand down his esophagus. He'd rip out the slimy tissue with saliva slickened fingers caked with blood, and no one would find his body until it was a shrine to the mushrooms and returning to the universe as energy, but that was the problem. He didn't want to return, and he didn't want to be constant. Everything within his being was desperate to reverse physics, but he couldn't buy the natural world. It was his life, and he would never control it.

By time he could see the field, the bonfires had been lit, and people were doing their best to pitch the tents they should have bothered with hours before. Axel's footsteps had been behind him the entire time, which was why he wasn't shocked when the man caught his upper-arm and yanked him back against his chest. It was too close for Roxas, and his internal organs shifted to the point he thought he would vomit on the forest floor. That or his shoes, but it didn't really matter by that point. His Pumas were waterlogged and caked in dirt.

"Don't run out there like I just violated you."

"You're the fucking sun on earth to those people." Roxas jerked his arm out of Axel's grip. "That's the last thing they'll think."

Axel lingered for a second because Roxas had done him the favor of stunning him with his abrupt emotional shift. "Hey, you vertically impaired urchin, I just went looking for you because your friend was concerned. You don't have to start attacking me because you're carting around an impressive chemical imbalance you clearly can't handle for shit."

"Don't talk like you fucking know what's wrong with me."

"You just told me you would have jumped off a cliff had I not shown up." Axel's tone was collected. In fact, it was so collected Roxas wanted to kill him. He himself rarely got upset, and it annoyed him when he was being the idiot while his company remained unaffected. "Maybe I have a higher standard for sanity than you do, but signs point to tilted scales."

"And you have room to talk?"

"Did I say  _anything_  about being perfectly in check?" Axel exhaled, and he was clearly done with the moment. "Your dramatics are Oscar worthy. I'll remember to wear my Versace on the red carpet after you're announced as one of this year's most promising nominees. Pretty, blue-eyed blond capable of acting to the point of making himself cry. Headlining all the Arts and Entertainment sections of the papers with his angry little mug because Roxas Eames is perpetually in character. Except, I'm beginning to think this could be  _out_ of character for you, so sober up, sunshine, the curtain is about to lift."

Axel pushed on his shoulder blades, and the pair appeared together as if nothing had been said between them. Olette was the first to approach Roxas, and she cupped his face with a quick smile. She smelled like beer, and someone would eventually take advantage of her. Roxas wish he had the ability to genuinely care about whether or not someone ended up between her legs that night, but he had been drained of all his potential to give her any second thought. He wanted whiskey, and he wanted an entire bag of marshmallows worth of s'mores because then he could hide behind someone's tent and make himself feel better with a diminishing gag reflex. He needed something to come up and leave him hollowed out because there hadn't been much accomplishment that day, and there weren't many ways for him to gain satisfaction.

He downed the cheap whiskey Demyx offered him beside a fireplace, and there was a girl with short red hair making endless one-sided conversation with him. She introduced herself as Kairi, and Roxas had seen bigger tits on a man, but he liked the way she articulated her words with her heavy German accent. She was bright with an intelligent edge to her speech, and when Axel meandered past the blanket they were sitting on together, she nonchalantly mentioned how Axel was her ex-boyfriend.

"We had great chemistry," she said with a shrug, and Roxas was hooked by her rough handling on the English language. He wanted her to talk him into a coma. "Very intelligent, good looking, charming. He's the kind of man my family would've loved for me to marry, but he's so…"

Kairi lifted her hands and pointed to the sky. She couldn't find the word for it, and Roxas nodded in understanding. She dropped her hands and shrugged before making him his third s'more and handing it off. He watched the corner of her mouth drop to a frown, and it surprised him when she continued talking about Axel. Her interest in the topic had initially seemed casual.

"He's a boy who lives in the stars, but because of that, we're still friends." Kairi took the bottle of whiskey when it was passed to her and tipped it back without bothering to use her coke as a chaser. "He loves vigorously for someone who doesn't love himself, and even when I called it off, he shifted into being like my brother. It's nice to have family like him when you're so far from your own. How do you know Axel? I saw you two talking earlier, and he ran into the woods the second your little girlfriend got worried. Like, he sprinted."

Roxas was quick to deduce her openness had to do with the booze, but he wasn't good enough of a person to stray from the subject matter. "Chance encounter, I guess. I don't think we mesh well, though."

"You'd be the first to say that." She sucked marshmallow goo off her thumb. "He's obscenely patient with people."

"There's a first for everything," he said as she handed him the bottle.

"This is true." Kairi paused, thoughtful. "You're cute. Want to sleep in my tent?"

He furrowed his eyebrows at the question while in mid-drink. "Okay?"

They downed a couple more shots before getting to their feet, and the ground shifted. The fact of the matter was Kairi was attractive, down to earth, and she was almost frighteningly nice. Roxas could only imagine how well she had worked with Axel, and he wasn't sure why it made him nauseous knowing she and the redhead weren't dating. He had a feeling there was more to the story, but as they walked away from the bonfires, he wasn't awake enough to care. His mental placement had definitely bought better seats, which was why, when Kairi and he passed by Axel while stepping into her tent, he didn't think much of the inquisitive look he shot their way. Roxas had spent his teenage years in a realm where he and Hayner drank themselves sick and shared girls who were more than willing to simultaneously push down expensive panties bought by their daddies' credit cards and suck cock. Their glossed lips parted, and Roxas knew too well the discomfort of wiping sticky glitter off his balls while wondering why girls put it on thick before inevitably climbing onto the sink of a bathroom. Hayner always dated them so they wouldn't tell the world they'd been used for pornographic ideals, and Roxas only spoke to them when in public.

Roxas fucked Kairi because she had a flat chest. Her ribs were branches beneath skin he could have dug under without any fear of her noticing, and the sense of control had him salivating. Her body begged for fat cells and trembled beneath his trailing palms when she showed him where she needed his hand to be, and he fell in love with the way she said his name each time her spine slid upward along the slippery sleeping bag. When he took the necessary five seconds to pretend he genuinely cared about whether or not she felt good, she choked on his name, and god damn, he wished she would shut he fuck up and stop  _gurgling_. Over and over again she stroked his ego, and Roxas was glad there wasn't lighting in the tent because his expression remained indifferent to her responses. There was only so much pretending he could handle when his attraction to her was the equivalent to a child's fascination with a shiny trinket on a high shelf. He wanted her for conversations and not a hole to fuck. Those were the people who went away. He didn't want Kairi to leave.

She asked him to bust on her face, which he did with haphazard enthusiasm because it was overdone. Girls had this misconception he enjoyed that kind of domineering behavior, and maybe if it wasn't like Adele on the radio, then he would've still gotten off. He gripped her hair until she whimpered, and he gritted his teeth as he released on her pretty mug that was still speckled with paint. They were all nature scum and coated in the scent of human, which as an afterthought was enough to make his stomach churn. He decided to build alters dedicated to the individuals who had invented the condom because they were the only reason he was going to be sleeping with any peace of mind that night.

"How old are you?" Kairi asked after they'd settled on her sleeping bag still naked.

It was humid out, he was sticky, and he hated his life. "Eighteen."

Much to Roxas' displeasure, she released a shrieking laugh. "Wait. Wait _._   _What_?"

"I'm not even a college freshman yet," he said monotonously.

"I'm mortified, horrified, but I  _think_  I'm impressed?" Kairi placed a hand over her chest and sighed through a fit of giggling. "Oh-my goodness. Well, we won't be doing  _that_  again. I don't want to get myself locked up in the states because I slept with a young boy during university."

"It's legal," he grumbled.

"Not in the realm of my standards." Kairi rolled to face him. "But we should be friends. You're a strange boy and I like that about you. It's your eyes, I think? Yes, that's what it is. Sort of like – oh, hell, how do I even describe it? People who scream with their eyes when they don't speak? Loud, so loud they can't be silenced by a locked jaw."

"Thanks, I think."

Maybe it was because she didn't find him impressive enough to fawn over, but when Kairi murmured an invitation to play laser tag with her friends the next weekend, he found himself accepting. If Roxas was to be honest with his self, he had no idea why he thought exchanging numbers with her—though, she had to write hers on his wrist by cell phone light—in a whirlwind blur of fatigue seemed like a good idea, but he did. The concept was smooth on his conscience, and even when he woke up before Kairi and stumbled out of the tent with the need to piss until his bladder shriveled into a raisin, he couldn't find a single lick of regret from the night before. The slightly demeaning sex had been decent enough to leave him in good spirits because there wasn't going to be a lick of annoyance steaming from what had happened. Kairi didn't want him, he didn't want Kairi, and they were jumping off into platonic waters. The method hadn't been conventional, but stranger things had happened.

"And the almighty douchelord steps from the confines of his temporary castle." Demyx's laughter followed his words, and Roxas looked over to see him attempting to open what appeared to be a canister of instant coffee. "I can't open this. I don't know why. I think this could be science, but I'm not positive."

Roxas headed over to him and reached out for the container. "Let me see."

"Yes, your majesty."

Rolling his eyes as Demyx bowed, he cross-examined the container only to sigh. "You didn't take the plastic off. Did you even sleep?"

"I would've slept but there were these two ostriches in the tent beside me squawking while in the midst of procreation."

Roxas' expression faltered. " _Oh_."

"But that's fine. The beauty of fertilizing eggs is something I shouldn't hold ill will for."

"Have you seen Olette?"

"Frolicking about with Diamond somewhere. I'm pretty sure he brought her a latte this morning, which was a weird gesture. I wasn't sure if he was subtly mocking her or not. That's typically not his bag, so knowing him, it was genuine."

As if on cue, Olette popped out of the tent only a couple feet away with a Starbucks cup in hand and her panties in the other. Roxas greeted her with a dull expression she was quick to grasp onto as the signal for them to leave. Roxas didn't want to see Axel ever again, and the faster they left, then the sooner he could forget he had ever slept with Kairi or admitted to a complete stranger he was interested in dying, again.

* * *

Laser tag didn't cross Roxas' mind again until the day of, and the only reason he even remembered he had agreed to play with Kairi and her friends was because she sent him a short text with the time. At first, he didn't recognize her number because he hadn't bothered to mark it down before showering. Roxas had assumed it was forever lost. Not only that, but it took him two days to muster up the energy to go out and buy another smartphone, so he had been cut off from not just Kairi's possible text messages, but everyone. Those few days had been luxurious, and even his father couldn't openly complain about it because he had lied and claimed it was stolen. Attempting to track it had been a failure, which was how Roxas was certain the phone had been annihilated upon landing.

"Of all the people."

Roxas had been sulking in his air conditioned Mercedes with no music playing and his new iPhone in hand. Before him was a towering three story building he had passed multiple times since it had opened five years beforehand, but due to the juvenile neon sign and heinous lime and turquoise cement walls, he had never bothered to go inside. Just sitting in front of the fortress left Roxas faintly embarrassed, and he couldn't figure out why. It was the exact same feeling he got when his mother made him go shopping with her. He wasn't just out of his element. His style was being cramped, and it didn't matter how interesting he found Kairi because her company just didn't seem worth running around in sweat stained laser tag suits like a complete idiot. Roxas couldn't stand feeling stupid. Even skateboarding in front of other people put him off his element.

Jumping in his seat, he recognized the voice and face as Xigbar, and Roxas would've been lying had he said he'd expected the man to be there. Standing in all his black jeans and V-neck glory, Xigbar was beside two individuals he didn't recognize. Upon shoving his phone into the glove compartment and opening his door, they were quick to introduce themselves as Marluxia and Luxord. They were both dressed in black, and it was then Roxas realized all three of them were matching. Wondering if he was about to be pulled into the Matrix, he swallowed spit and pocketed his keys.

"Kairi invited me," he said, assuming they were there with her.

"Could've sworn you'd be Diamond's bitch." Xigbar slung his arms around Roxas' shoulders and began walking him toward the front of the building. "Have you ever played laser tag before?"

"Once before, when I was younger."

"Well, forget about the kid shit, Eames, because this isn't elementary."

Marluxia tilted down into Roxas' line of vision before speaking. "There's been blood."

"And carpet burns," Luxord added.

Xigbar hissed. "The fucking carpet burns. Lost half my team to it."

The group entered the gaudy establishment, and Roxas watched as the three men swiped their holographic membership cards. Wondering why anyone would need membership cards for a laser tag fun house, Roxas arched an eyebrow and went to the counter to pay for a daily pass. He found it weird how they waited for him, and as they talked amongst themselves about strategy, Roxas was having a difficult time believing they meant laser tag. There was nothing worthy of military terminology in a building containing circular pink tables with amateur graffiti spritzed across the tops and cheap yellow carpeting stained by Gatorade and cola. He continued to tell himself Xigbar and Luxord were referring to the kills from videos games or maybe even paintball, but as they approached a pair of looming grey doors modeled after gothic architecture, he began second guessing himself.

"Roxas, you're on our team!" Kairi ran up to him, and she was already suited up in her skin tight laser tag gear that looked like a vest ripped straight from a Star Trek props closet. Her short hair was yanked back into a high ponytail, and she was holding her gun that had seemingly been modeled after an AK47. Instead of a black shirt, she was wearing a murky green, and Roxas nearly squinted at the choice in color from distaste. "But our captain isn't here yet."

Waving goodbye to Xigbar as Kairi took his hand and led him to the wall where all the suits were hanging, she rapidly helped him get fitted into one while rambling off the rules of laser tag. All Roxas could gather from her jibber jabber was that he didn't want to get into the line of vision of anyone unless completely necessary, and wherever the chunky bits of machinery were on his suit were his vulnerabilities. The gun tracked his rank and shots, and as she gave his hip straps a final tight pull, he had the lingering suspicion she had signed him up for guerrilla warfare. Someone was going to die beyond those walls, and when a gust of smoke from dry ice billowed free from the cracks, he knew it would be him. Roxas' death was inevitable, and there would be absolutely no sympathy for him from anyone.

"Who's our captain?"

Kairi opened her mouth to answer only for her attention to be stolen by the sound the building's front door opening. Immediately, she waved, and when Roxas glanced over, he felt his intestines drop from his butt and onto the daffodil carpet. Dressed in what appeared to be customized laser tag gear, Axel strode toward them with Demyx to his left and another individual with an impressive blue devil lock to his right. There was a bird painted across Axel's chest piece, and Roxas could have sworn he had stepped into a shitty remake of the Road Warrior. ACDC's TNT was blaring, there were explosions in the background amongst a desert scape, and each stride was in slow motion. Everyone had gone from jovial to tense, and the only person who dared to move was Xigbar. People were shitting themselves, each person was spontaneously wearing a pair of Doc Martens, and the blond had gone from Roxas to a drafted soldier meant for the trench. He would never marry, and his sperm would go to waste.

Xigbar met Axel halfway, and the two looked each other over appraisingly. At first, Roxas had been convinced them doing so had solely been for scrutiny, but the sly smiles they exchanged made both of his brows creep toward his hairline. Xigbar was eyeing Axel's lazily unconcealed navel exposed from where his armor had raised a corner of his shirt, and Axel's eyes narrowed in on the tightness of Xigbar's pants. It was terrible, everyone was mortified, and Roxas regretted not jumping off that cliff when he'd had a chance. Kairi coughed back a laugh. She had noticed, but she wasn't going to break the atmosphere to clue Roxas in. She wasn't always compassionate, and Roxas was yet to know this about her.

"Purple Fox," Axel said in greeting.

"Peregrine Falcon," the other returned, though his speech was rather clipped.

"Where's your customary armor?"

"Left it on your bedroom floor."

There was a collective gasp, and Roxas wasn't sure if his life was real. Nothing going on around him was reality, and he was simply dreaming. He absolutely, positively refused to believe Xigbar and Axel had ever had any kind of relations beyond friendship. Even if it had been vigorous friendship where they masturbated in the same room together and didn't talk about it the next day, then that was fine. Roxas wouldn't see it as any other way. If he accepted it, then his brain would implode and leak from his ears.

"I'm going to wreck your ass," Axel grumbled as he prodded Xigbar's chest with the barrel of his gun.

"Plowed yours last night."

Kairi abruptly wrapped her arm around Roxas' waist before leaning over to whisper in his ear. "Another reason Axel Diamond and I did not work out. He's a big ole gay."

"What is this?" Roxas couldn't believe he had mustered up the strength to speak. "Forbidden lovers at war?"

"If only it were that simple."

Axel clearly hadn't expected Xigbar to go as far as he had, which was why he dropped his previous demeanor before speaking again. "You said you wouldn't say anything."

"Maybe if you showed your ass less, then it wouldn't be as obvious."

Demyx coughed into his gloved hand before leaning closer to Axel. "It's really obvious, man."

Backing up as his team captain strode toward the doors, Axel barked out an obscure set of orders at Demyx who gave the man a reluctant thumb up. The two began murmuring to one another for an entire minute before calling a team meeting, and Roxas decided he was in hell. The past two weeks had been proof enough. He must have crashed the Mercedes after graduation, and he had been descending through the circular layers of hell for nearly three months. This was the final level. This was Satan's lair, and there would be absolutely no mercy.


	5. Darlings

"Purple Fox, fifty-two!" This was followed by a single hand rapidly signing, and Roxas was positive Axel had just told him to get on birth control via American Sign Language.

Drenched in black light that illuminated every stain on his black jeans, Roxas' back was pressed against a carpeted wall, and his brow was drenched in the kind of sweat that reminded him he hadn't worked out during summer. He was panting, and when he was certain Axel had given up on him complying with his asinine hand waving, Roxas abruptly tilted his head back. There was a quick intake of air only to be followed by Axel screaming profanity in English mangled by frustration, but Roxas didn't look over. A pair of long legs appeared above his head only to be swiftly shadowed by a long ponytail, and before Roxas realized what was happening, the blond was making singular eye contact with Xigbar. A short-lived stare off ensued, Roxas clenched down on his gun, and with a cocky smirk, Xigbar aimed and pulled the trigger. As fast as it had happened, Xigbar disappeared behind another wall doing what Roxas was quite certain had been an artfully performed barrel roll. At that, his chest piece began furiously blinking, and the blond was certain Axel had blacklisted him.

"You're incompetent, Flaxen Turtle!""

Axel had christened Roxas as Flaxen Turtle before they had stepped into the gym sock of a war zone, and he wasn't exactly sure what Axel was trying to imply by referring to him as such, but he had a feeling there had been some form of a personal attack masked there. In response to being called out, Roxas shot Axel the kind of glare of distaste the man returned before abruptly rising to his feet. Due to how lanky Diamond's legs were, Roxas had been caught off guard by the smoothness of the aforementioned change in stance. With furrowed brows he watched as Axel cackled, shot Luxord down with a merciless sweep of trigger pulls, and slid smoothly across the sweat dampened carpet. Suddenly lying on his side beside Roxas, Axel managed to roll himself over into a crouched position that was so animalistic Roxas had wondered if he'd blinked too long to fully catch the sequence of movements.

"I'm assuming Kairi invited you here on a drunken whim." Axel's words were surprisingly smooth as he leaned forward. Their faces were too close, and Roxas watched a single bead of sweat drip down into what Roxas abruptly realized were sideburns. Axel had sideburns. "You don't want to be here."

"I don't mind," Roxas murmured, which was a complete lie.

"Think about it this way," he began with a subtle drawl Roxas was a little too hypersensitive to. "If I don't win this, then I'm stuck scrubbing the fucking bathroom grout tomorrow. Do you know when we last scrubbed anything in my house?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Me neither."

Setting the gun aside, Axel reached out and pushed his gloved fingers through Roxas' matted hair before leaning forward. Abruptly, he gripped the hair a little harder than Roxas had expected, and the two stared each other down for what was far too long in Roxas' holy opinion. He wasn't sure if this was a legitimate warning from Axel or if he was taking a joke too far, but it didn't matter because the teenager had accidentally sucked in the kind of breath one might if they were a millisecond away from taking it over a kitchen table. Roxas hated himself, Axel had noticed, and he was desperately trying to remember exactly how people tied nooses. For someone who periodically contemplated jumping to his death Roxas wasn't particularly versed in the ways of suicide. He suddenly recognized this glaring flaw.

"The point is," Axel began as he let Roxas go. He was looking particularly smug. "If I lose because you're just sitting around, then we're going to have a serious fucking problem, Eames. I'm a man of consensual violence, so don't think I'll rip you limb from limb."

"And to think I thought you were charming."

Looking at Axel's smile was like staring into the sun. "I am charming, but I'm also not into being royally fucked over or losing."

"I don't have the experience to not fuck up."

Axel hunkered down even more, and he suddenly reached over for his set aside gun. Around them were the blood curdling screams of individuals being taken down by lights that didn't mean much, and Roxas wondered how a group of twenty-year-olds had managed to hype themselves up to the point of taking laser tag seriously. He was caught up in the misconception that twenty automatically meant adulthood, and approaching nineteen seemed like some end of the world he couldn't completely place. He feigned adulthood as if it was going out of style, and on his worst days, he genuinely believed he had hit some formative peak in his existence. There was so much to learn, but he still understood the workings of the universe as if it contained the complexities of a disregarded coloring book. Stay within the lines and he would be big man on campus. Being fascinated by the jagged strokes of waxy hues was no longer endearing, and he had mistaken added responsibility for a final will.

"You're overthinking a kid game." At that, Axel stuck out his arm lightning fast and Marluxia tripped over his balled up fist. Landing face first onto sandpaper carpeting, Roxas winced the second he watched the man skid forward. "Kick some ass with me."

Axel was on his feet as if his was spine on fire, and he planted a boot on the base of Marluxia's vertebrae before pointing his gun at the back of that rose tinted head. There was a fleeting moment when Roxas wondered where exactly Axel would shoot him, but much to his horror and subtle disgust, the redhead abruptly kicked him in the ribs until he rolled. The two were abruptly in an awkward standoff where Marluxia had grappled for his gun and Axel was pointing his directly at the other man's chest. There were sneers and teeth gnashing, and Roxas wondered if they were going to simultaneously take each other out or if Axel would just reach down and nail him in the crotch.

Wait—hold on. Roxas scrambled for his gun, and without thinking about what his limbs were doing, shoved Axel aside so he was sent straight onto his ass. With surprise still lingering on Marluxia's symmetrical face, Roxas shot his opponent's chest piece, and there was this surprisingly strong sensation of satisfaction as the spectrum of colors whirled across Marluxia's torso. The citrus colors illuminated his oceanic eyes that typically reflected nothing but darkened sandy floors, and he sucked in a quick breath that was interrupted by Axel snatching his bicep and jetting them toward a ramp. There was nothing but white noise as the pair shot through the semi-darkness and smoggy air, and when Axel shoved him into what looked to be a crawl space beneath the second level ramping, Roxas could have sworn they had done this before. He wasn't stupid enough to believe he had previously played laser tag with Axel Diamond, but the flash of blood red hair and pumping adrenaline carried a saddening familiarity to it that he could only chalk up as a severe bout of déjà vu.

Though he was lanky, Axel managed to work his way into the space with Roxas, and their legs were suddenly twisted into a brainteaser more complex than a Rubik's cube. The major difference being they couldn't pull squared stickers off their thighs and match up the colors in the name of elementary bragging rights. Roxas could have turned the concept into a flesh peeling scenario with a stultifying amount of B movie gore, but he decided against dwelling on making their bodies into a human puzzle. Instead, he settled on attempting to fight off the cramps in his thighs and doing his honorary best not to accidentally kick Axel in the gonads. Axel was bigger than him by a long shot, and he could only imagine the suffering he would fall victim to if he nailed him between the legs with an Ann Demeulemeester boot. He had a feeling he would be Crisco-ing aforesaid boot out of his ass, which was why he let Axel do the moving.

"What'd you do last night?" Axel asked as he peered into the fogged over room where people were still rolling around like Vietnam was clogging their veins.

"Does it really matter?" He had to admit he had definitely seen less angst driven replies in his day. "I mean, why?"

"You're a fucking enigma. That's why."

"An enigma?" Roxas managed to snort. "I sort of like that."

"It's an underhanded way of describing you as really fucking alien. Roxas Eames is The Man Who Fell to Earth."

"I can't be doing too badly if I'm David Bowie."

"Well, I was referring to the novel by Walter Tevis, so don't flatter yourself into a coma. Trust me; if you were anything like Bowie, then we'd have already had our intergalactic wedding on Mars."

"Never liked his Ziggy Stardust stuff."

Axel cut him a look of disgust, but he decided against touching Roxas' nearly unforgivable error. "Anyway, you contemptible shrew, time to make like Jeopardy and answer the question."

"I drank."

"By yourself?"

"I have no obligation to answer that."

"Which is a blatant way of not saying you did, which is also miserable. You're sardonic to the core, Roxas."

He pursed his lips. "I appreciate that."

"I'm just calling them as I see them. I like to believe I'm doing the world a small service because I feel like everyone else is pointing out the wrong obviousness."

"You're justifying rudeness, again."

Axel laughed and Roxas realized there was something whimsical and surreal about the way the sound tore from his throat. There was genuine happiness, but then there wasn't, and when he glanced away and Axel's smile eased, Roxas sought out a slipup. He wanted a falter to let him know Axel was a faker because jadedness wasn't a good enough reason for Roxas to accept the redhead's suicidal disposition. People capable of looking continuously happy when death was fresh on the mind made him uncomfortable, and he wondered if it was the norm for people to be the way Axel was. He didn't want to believe there weren't obvious signs when someone thought about stilled lungs and snapped necks because then he couldn't tell. The thought of his friends being like him beneath the skin was infuriating because misery loved company, and Roxas had condemned himself to the concept of being completely alone in how he felt.

"Don't drink alone tonight, kiddo."

Light eyebrows furrowed together, and Roxas paused. "I can't tell if that's an invitation or not."

"No, just don't drink alone. That's how alcoholics rip free from the greasy womb of addiction. All bloody and placenta-esque."

"Oh."

Axel suddenly blew a raspberry. "I was kidding. You should drop by my place after this. I'll bandage your carpet burns, we'll fall in love, and due to our class differences be forced to romance one another from afar until your Rockefeller father and I play a game of Russian Roulette. By then you'll be pregnant with our bastard daughter, and we'll have to flee because I defiled your rose petals prior to marriage."

"Do you wake up every morning and gather your material before embarking on the world or is it just a tragic mental illness?"

"I'm a fan of vocalizing spontaneous thoughts," Axel said, only fleetingly glancing over as someone bolted past their hiding spot.

"As in missile vomiting your brain junk on unsuspecting villagers?"

"Women and children alike."

"So, you're the human agent orange."

"More like agent red."

Roxas gave the man an accusing stare. "Axel—"

"Okay, that was a bad joke even for me, but I'm not perfect."

"Definitely close but no cigar."

The ginger cackled. "Was that a compliment or a misfired insult?"

"I'm not sure myself, but apparently, we need to consider refining our communication skills."

Shifting in his spot, Roxas checked the timer on his gun only to realize they had two minutes of playtime left. A frown formed, and he wondered if there was a chance they could play another round. His inner perfectionist had managed to surface, and he genuinely wanted to raise his rank and pursue a better overall score. Though he wasn't sure if he could ever see himself making a hobby out of laser tag the way Axel and his friends clearly had, he liked the idea of occasionally using it as a form of both working out and an emotional outlet. Sometimes a person just needed to spend thirty minutes pretending they were blasting open chest cavities to keep it together.

When Xigbar flitted past, Axel struggled to pull himself free from his hiding place, and Roxas wondered if the prolonged leg touching had forced their skin to melt together because they could not untangle themselves. Axel was laughing, and Roxas made a face of disbelief when he leaned forward and scrunched up against the teenager's chest. Instinctively, he gripped Axel's bicep, and he reiterated to himself how much he liked Axel's sideburns and the way he playfully scrunched up his nose as if responding to a subtle inside joke. Even the way the man grasped onto his shoulder before abruptly flopping them over onto their sides made his throat contract, but he genuinely couldn't wrap his brain around why he responded the way he did to Axel's seemingly minor traits of existence. It was frustrating, and after more than thirty minutes of it, exhausting.

They fell onto the battlefield with a defining thud, and Roxas laid there like a stunned mole before Axel began to belly crawl out from the entanglement. Continuing to lay there for the sake of dramatics, Roxas didn't bother even twitching a limb until Axel hissed out his name in that domineering manner where he was certain he would end up punched in the dick if he didn't readily respond.

"Crash course on elementary signing," Axel murmured once Roxas had knelt down behind a barrel beside him. He began to smoothly work his fingers in the kind of fluid motions Roxas had never played witness to before. There was something about the way he was so expressive as he worked through bending fingers and swiftly twisted wrists that left him faintly slack jaw. "This means run and this means don't you fucking dare move."

Roxas clumsily mimicked the motions, and his frown deepened significantly when Axel seemed amused by his inability to rapidly grasp onto the foreign communication method. Setting aside his gun for what Roxas was certain had to be the millionth time; Axel grasped onto Roxas' hands and began to gently redirect fingers. After a prolonged period of Roxas' hands not cooperating, the pair was soon settled on their knees in front of one another growing frustrated because Roxas' fingers were apparently incapable of complying.

"You're trying to piss me off," Axel grumbled. He was clearly determined to make Roxas' fingers move because he wasn't giving up no matter how many exasperated noises Roxas made. "If fingers could have brain cells, then yours wouldn't have any."

"They're still functioning. I don't think they're vegetables yet."

"You're right. They're more at the level of those classes they shoved mentally incapacitated kids into in my high school."

"You have no class."

Axel stopped and looked up to give him a reproachful stare. "Do you really care?"

A corner of his mouth dipped down. "Not really."

He returned to the task at hand. "Thought so."

The overhead lights brightened and Roxas' abruptly blurred gaze shot to Axel's chest. His equipment was blinking, and when he realized his was too, Roxas knew the game was over. Wondering why it seemed like zero time had passed since reluctantly stepping out of the car, he thought back only to come to terms with the fact it felt quick because he had gone into prolonged defense mode. The memory blocking had initiated upon stepping through the doors, and he had spent the majority of the game time hiding behind walls and in as many crevices he could wiggle his vertically impaired frame into. Roxas hadn't joined laser tag on the lookout for life changing exposés, which he even he could admit had been obvious.

"Are you fucking kidding me? I swear they're making these rounds shorter." Axel habitually brushed his thumb across one of Roxas' left knuckles while glancing around the lit room still veiled by smoke. "Next time I—"

When Axel cut himself short and directed his stare to the knuckles he had been dragging the pads of his fingers across, Roxas couldn't figure out what had caught his attention, at least, not until the rubbing grew concentrated on a single spot. There was a short wince he wished he could have sucked in along with the reflexive contracting of his fingers. Axel's previously relaxed expression grew tense. Furrowed eyebrows were accompanied by pursed Cover Girl lips, and Roxas deluded himself into believing Axel was still frustrated with his lackluster round of laser tag. The petting continued, and the pair soon stared one another down, but Roxas averted his gaze first because Axel's knowingness was eerie.

He wanted to spit in the redhead's face. Only to follow it by reaching out and digging his fingers into his clavicles to feel the satisfying pop of breaking skin beneath his nails as they dipped behind bone. His knuckles were pink, puffy and paid homage to the faintly jagged ridges along the bottom of his front teeth. He had inspected them multiple times and understood the damage they could inflict when he wasn't careful. Weapons being eroded away by stomach acid, and if he hadn't been trained by the parental shock collar, then he would have screamed an apology in Axel's face. Sorry, you piece of degenerate, low-grade, uptown trash. They'll rot out eventually, and it'll be so much fucking easier for me. Stop looking at me like you fucking know shit about it. Stop fucking looking. There's nothing to look at. I'm nothing to look at.

"That carpet burn is gallery worthy." Axel grinned before easily bringing himself upright. "I had no idea you were so fragile."

Roxas returned the smile with a slightly wrinkled nose and disgruntled expression before following Axel's lead. "I had no idea you were such an asshole."

"I always imagine how difficult my life would be if I wasn't conventionally attractive."

And in that moment, Roxas wasn't positive if he absolutely despised Axel Diamond or wanted them to be friends. He considered it progress.

Axel smoked like a freight train. Whenever they parted ways in the parking lot so they could go to their separate homes and shower Axel was lighting up, and when Roxas knocked on the man's front door an hour later with a bottle of quality rum in his hand, Axel was holding a squirming ferret in one hand and a Djarum Black in the other. The smoke wasn't typical cigarette smoke, and though he knew it was because Axel smoked cloves, Roxas couldn't help but to place the scent somewhere else. It was sweet, but after prolonged exposure it made his sensitive throat ache. That aside, he enjoyed every scratchy upshot. There was something about it that made his pulse race because he knew the allspice element was permeated into every fiber of the clothes Axel tossed around his bedroom. He wondered if it had leaked into his skin. Though, after those thoughts, he decided he was a grade A creep who probably needed to consider behavioral reformation before he turned into a boxer brief stealing stalker. More than likely he'd keep them under the seat of his car so he could sniff on the go.

"Does the host have to share the gift?" Axel had his forearm pressed against the door frame and a sharp stare locked in on the rum, but he eventually stepped back to let Roxas into his home. "Is that Pyrat? Do you know how many rounds of cheap pornographic acting I would have to endure in order to afford that?"

"Why is there a Baby On Board sticker on the back of your car?" Originally, Roxas hadn't intended on asking, but the sign was an obnoxious yellow clashing with the back of Axel's red KIA Soul. He would have been lying had he said he wasn't anticipating an unplanned pregnancy story, and Roxas had spent the entire walk to Axel's front door trying to imagine him as a father. Multiple scenes flashed through his mind. One of them being Axel tossing the baby into a wood chipper followed by him attempting to warm a bottle only to set the house on fire. The conclusion to the latter story was Axel left the child behind in the fiery house because it really was every man for his self.

"The car is the baby."

Stepping past Axel, Roxas dragged a hand along the scratched door and walked into the living room. Booted feet strode across stained carpeting, and the permeated scent of burnt weed where someone had attempted to smoke resin too many times whirled into his nostrils like a sandstorm. There was a form of self-awareness in that moment where Roxas was thin-skinned to the way the fabric of his shirt dragged across his sun-kissed abdomen, and he knew there were bones beneath layers of muscle tissue and sewers of blood. Treading into the habitats of individuals who weren't mannequins lined up along the storefronts of living was a rarity, and he understood the different degrees of living. Some people were meant to sit on display. He couldn't deny that no matter how he attempted to approach life, but then there were those who flaunted their life through motion and strode down runways. He was the peachy adolescent posing in the back of a Sears catalog, and he was commercial.

"We were just lighting up," Demyx said from his spot on the floor.

In front of him was the coffee table, and the fellow blond was prodding at ashes with a set of tweezers for any smoke-able debris to add to the stockpile of fresh herb he had set aside. His eyebrows were furrowed, but his lips were drawn into a genuine smile Roxas found reassuring. Though he had been snarky, Roxas had a feeling Demyx genuinely had no beef with him. There was never an ounce of animosity that seemed glaringly obvious, and Roxas was confident in his ability to read social cues even if his reactions had knack for implying otherwise.

He sat down on the floor beside Demyx, and Axel plopped down on the couch beside Xigbar who flashed Axel the kind of knowing stare Roxas couldn't overlook. It was expectant, unsettling, and his eye had narrowed in an almost devilish manner. There was the reality Roxas dealt with his bouts of paranoia, but he knew better. He knew that had been weird, but by the time he had considered accepting something was strange, he had mentally talked himself in circles and convinced himself otherwise. Xigbar and Axel were engaging in a casual conversation about their joint theology course, and Demyx was politely asking Roxas those mundane introductory questions where a conversation was bound to fizzle out and die like a raccoon on the forest floor. It'd twitch, try, heave a final breath, and the corpse would either be a meal for the vermin or fungi fertilizer.

Roxas' thumb was calloused from where he had spent the past two months repeatedly dragging it along lighters, and when Demyx passed the bong, he wondered if they would smoke enough to wear the hardened skin away. The want to be baked was enough to bring him to ignoring his unending text messages from Hayner and Pence, and with the tilt of a lighter and his thumb on the carb, he fleetingly glanced at Axel who was watching him carefully. The stare was intense, but instead of disregarding it, he gave the other man eye contact and allowed the bong to gurgle as he drew in the first hit. One of his eyebrows crept upward, and instead of politely blowing smoke away, he held and exhaled the steady stream in the direction of Axel.

"Got something to say?" Roxas asked with steady voice considering the sharp burn along his throat.

Axel's demeanor wasn't about to falter, but the need to smirk was evident. "Puff, puff, pass."

At that, Roxas gave the lighter a couple scratchy clicks before bringing the mouthpiece to his lips. "Don't fucking rush me."

The four passed the bong around thrice before Roxas began to finally feel lifted. When he was laughing at Demyx's poorly constructed puns, he decided then was the time to open the rum, which suddenly turned into a struggle. There was perforated plastic, and after fighting with it due to shaky fingers from low blood sugar he passed off as the general idiocy, Axel scooted from the couch laughing and sat down beside Roxas to take over what had apparently morphed into a surgical procedure.

"I'm not trying to divide the Red sea," Axel cackled as he too struggled with the Pyrat bottle. "Let my people go!"

"Give it back!" Roxas tried to retrieve the rum. "You're worthless."

"Right in the self-esteem!" Axel feigned a pained expression as he finally tore off the cap's restraint. 

Xigbar groaned from disgust with the bong in hand. "I've got a gun in my bedroom with a bullet I'd be more than happy to watch you feed yourself."

There was a quick laugh on Roxas' part before he swallowed down the first swig of amber. It was smooth enough to keep him from coughing or shivering, but he had never been desperate enough to buy the kind of booze capable of making his stomach roil from the thought alone. Axel was the expert at pounding down shot after shot of what smelt like straight fingernail polish and was probably less healthy than drinking gasoline. Mango Burnett's had a knack for barely scraping the ten dollar mark, and when Roxas had finished handing the rum off to Demyx, Axel had stood up, disappeared into the kitchen, and reappeared with aforementioned flavored vodka. He drank it straight without much reaction but a slight frown, and instead of returning to his couch, he sat back down beside Roxas and handed off the bottle.

"Man it up a little," he murmured before extending his lanky arm for the purple bong and its swirling greens and whites. "Make me proud."

"Says the man who handed me a bottle of flavored vodka." Roxas brought the lips of the bottle to his nose, took a quick whiff, and when the scent singed his nose hairs he nearly coughed. "No."

"One swig, Eames."

"Fuck yourself, Diamond. That's battery acid in a bottle."

"It gets the job done." The redhead pointed at Xigbar who was in the midst of a gulp of Pyrat. "That rum isn't going to be enough to get us fucked up."

"What if I don't want to get fucked up?"

Axel's expression grew knowing again, and Roxas' lips formed a thin line. "Then why are you here?"

"Demyx's comedic genius."

At that, Demyx slung an arm around Roxas' shoulders and brought him close. He leaned in and began whispering in Roxas' ear. "I always knew we were destined to be best friends. That shit is neurological science."

Roxas had initially assumed they would be doing more than smoking and drinking as a quadrangle, but he wasn't particularly disappointed when Xigbar announced he didn't feel like going to a frat house to essentially do the same thing with only the perk of potentially being puked on. Axel agreed he too was moderately indifferent about going to that specific party, and after almost demolishing forty dollars worth of kush, Roxas was tipsy, baked, and contently on his back with the stained ceiling above him. He stared with the abrupt want to tell Axel how his sideburns looked good, and he didn't want him to shave them. Somewhere between pushing away the vodka and reaching for the bong, Xigbar had explained the bet Axel had managed to lose in the name of having to grow facial hair, but he couldn't recall exactly what had gone down. There had been a fire hydrant and Demyx had nearly lost his left foot. He was hoping it would all add up in the morning.

Sleepily finding everything around him significantly funnier than it genuinely was, Roxas wanted to stand up and sway his arms about the way he had in the field with Olette. His mood wasn't doused in an undecipherable dread, and when he shifted his shoulder blades against the cheap field of carpet, he could have sworn it was grass. Roxas was comfortable enough in his skin in that moment to disregard the hunger pangs that had a knack for simultaneously being cancelled out by the insatiable want to dig his fingers into the back of his tongue.

"Food break," Xigbar muttered before rising to his feet. He stood still for a moment to get his bearings and assess exactly how sloshed he was before stiffening his spine. "As if we have any food in this God forsaken place."

"I think there's a bag of chicken nuggets in there," Demyx said while shakily getting to his feet. He attempted to sprint toward the kitchen only to fumble in an attempt to miss a scampering albino ferret. "We should make all of them. We'll make a tower of them, and when we're done conquering that fucking empire we'll take the entire packet of mini Oreo cookies I've hidden from you greedy jerk wads and eat them in a bowl like cereal. I want a chicken pot pie. Axel, I'm going to eat your chicken pot pie."

Axel paused in the middle of inhaling only to begin hacking up a lung. Roxas turned his head to watch the man plop the bong down and shake from the coughing fit, but he abruptly began heaving laughter in Axel's dispense. He wasn't sure if it was because Axel had been pointing at Demyx the entire time or if it was because he had started snatching up lighters and anything with mediocre value and chucking them. In the end, Roxas couldn't make himself believe the reasoning mattered. He was genuinely laughing because of other people, and he wasn't biting the inside of his cheek raw from the frustration brought on by his friends' never ceasing need to perform as if the perfectly timed sentence could be the difference between the survival of every newborn in the world. There was natural coursing amusement in the moment, and he was soon sitting upright and smacking the in between of Axel's shoulders with a little more force than necessary.

"Don't eat my fucking pot pie! I worked for that!"

"You drank the last of my milk, and yes, pushing is so respectable!" Demyx dramatically pranced into the kitchen after Xigbar and made a huge showing of opening and closing the freezer over and over again, slamming the frozen pot pie on the counter top, tossing and fumbling around with the box, and eventually, he ripped it open.

"If I hear that microwave—" Axel was caught off by the repetitive banging of the microwave door being yanked open and thrown shut, and it wasn't until the beeping of Demyx putting in the time broke the silence did Axel scramble to his feet as if someone had just threatened to abduct a fetus from his wife's uterus.

There was a moment where Roxas anticipated Axel falling, but he strode into the kitchen as if completely unaffected. "Demyx, if you value your life, then stop that fucking microwave!"

A silent struggle ensued, and Xigbar's wicked laughter filtered through Demyx's abruptly pitched scream that made Roxas wonder if there had been a homicide in the kitchen over freezer food. He expected the satisfying splat of organs colliding with checkered tiled flooring, but all that followed was the distinct opening and closing of the microwave and an encore of the freezer doing the same. When Axel returned he was carrying a bag of what appeared to be tortilla chips and a couple bottles of water. He dropped one of the icy bottles onto Roxas' lower abdomen before plopping back down beside him. Demyx was nowhere to be found, and Xigbar abruptly bitched about how arduous it was to make boxed macaroni and cheese.

"Want one?" Axel asked as he opened the bag with that distinct pop.

Roxas shook his head before rolling onto his side. "Might puke."

"Light weight?" He set the bag aside before grabbing the bong. "Take another hit. You'll probably feel better."

"I don't want to move."

Axel didn't hesitate before speaking. "Then I propose a non-implicative shotgun."

"The fact you had to specify it wasn't implicative means you're uncomfortable with your sexuality."

"That hypocrisy has the stench of a sun baked corpse."

For some reason, Roxas managed another laugh before grasping onto Axel's elbow. "Shotgun before I have to puke into your chip bag."

"For someone who was raised on diamond encrusted bottles and the sweaty brows of all of my friends' laboring parents you're delightfully revolting at times."

There was a scoff on the blond's part, but he didn't know how to come back to that. "I can't always be perfect."

"That perfect definition is becoming glaringly subjective."

The sudden bubbling of Axel drawing back smoke had Roxas redirect his gaze, and for some reason, he zeroed in on the other's hands. Elongated fingers that were surprisingly proportionate with the rest of his oddly shaped body, and he wondered what strange radioactivity Axel's mother had been exposed to during her pregnancy for her son to develop into such a smooth talking pretty boy. The reality was Axel had absolutely no room to talk when he made subtly snide comments about Roxas' groomed features because that skin had to be moisturized, and he waxed. Roxas was positive he waxed.

When Axel set the bong aside and went to lean over him, there was a bizarre fluidity in the motion of Roxas reaching up with incautious hands. Fingers gripped toned biceps, lips parted, and when Axel began exhaling that steady stream of smoke into his mouth, he breathed in with the distinct knowledge that the intake had momentarily whirled around in the interior of the man's spongy lungs. The fabric of Axel's sleeves was soon clenched between his fingers, and even though Axel was carefully hovering over him with an open palm planted beside his head, there was heaviness between them. Someone had filled the space with cement, and as he held the hit, neither of them broke eye contact, and he was glad.

Roxas—the boy who was so caustic when it came to the possibility of forgoing his routine for even just new friends—was suddenly consumed by the concept of being fucked until he couldn't feel the nerves in his thighs and was choked blue. The gears behind his sternum were rusted and jammed beyond the possibility of repair, and he didn't want to risk someone busting him open like a forgotten clock in the attic only to realize he wasn't worth consignment shop inventory. Roxas understood he wasn't good enough for secondhand use, and it made being beaten down significantly less destructive for him. On his good days, he found it gratuitous.

He tilted his head back, and in a single smooth torrent, respired. Roxas was still clinging to Axel when his lungs were free of smoke, and he bit back any breathiness of acceptance when Axel's fingers slid into his blond locks and held still. There was the dare on the tip of his tongue where he wanted to prod at Axel's resistance until the ginger snapped back and he stung himself. More so than not he was positive he genuinely didn't want anyone for the right reasons. The ability to feign interest and let people crumble at his expense was a trait he had both inherited and cultivated since birth. Walking away in the name of self-betterment was what his father had raised him to believe was necessary sacrifice. No one got ahead without stepping on a couple piles of maggoty bodies, but Roxas wasn't sure if what he did bettered anything. He was the embodiment of selfishness and lathered in the egocentrism because the fleeting moments when he believed he cared were tranquil. Roxas knew himself as a small, emotionally disturbed child, and he liked to believe it was obvious enough to the point of it solely being his victim's fault if they got burned by him. They should have known better.

"I'm too fucked up for this," Axel admitted, but he didn't move even when Roxas returned to looking directly up at his marble carved face. There was a falter there and Roxas was more than ready to take advantage of it. "And you're—"

"Too good for you?" Roxas murmured the words with a taunting edge.

He drew back an inch. "Beneath me."

"You never waste an opportunity to be bold, do you?"

"Honest, Roxas. It's call being honest."

"So, you're honestly too good for me?"

Axel's eyes were sharp as flint when Roxas cupped a side of his face, and there was a peculiar spring to his pulse when the man flinched like an angered fight dog. He wanted Axel to punch him until his nose spurted blood and fragments of his skull splintered into his brain. Death in anyway was generally appealing, but assistance had its own rotten charm. He wanted them to fuck before shoving the barrel between shiny rows of braces altered teeth only to pull the trigger before the post-coital glow had worn off. They didn't have to know one another like the back of their hands to step onto a balanced scale together, and it was everything he wanted.

"Does it make you feel better when others berate you?" Axel was gritting teeth, but he remained composed in comparison to what Roxas had anticipated and wanted. He was begging for showy bitterness, but he clearly hadn't struck a sensitive enough nerve. He would have to wait until they knew each other better. "Is there a psychological slip there because your entire life is nothing but a rich boy cliché where Daddy didn't love you enough, so now you're hellbent on being fucked and sucked dry by someone you don't know in hopes of it truly being what defines a loving relationship? Do you want confirmation, Roxas? Would letting you gag on my dick give your hopes and dreams for only corrosion a leg to stand on?"

"Don't talk like you think you know me."

"You're a chocolate soldier. You're truism and predictable because there are so many like you. I don't need to know you to know what you are." Axel's fingers wrapped around Roxas' neck, and he bit back a laugh when Roxas remained straight faced. "I bet you'd writhe if I applied pressure."

Axel paused and released Roxas without anything else to say, and for some reason, Roxas was wearing his own smirk when the redhead spoke again. "But I won't give you the satisfaction."

"As if you'd be able to give me that." Roxas wasn't sure if he had just challenged Axel or not.

"Roxas, you're the Rolling Stones and you can't get no satisfaction."

Demyx meandered into the living room and made the kind of noise of disgust commonly heard when a child witnessed their parents sucking face. He was horrified, displeased with this peculiar positioning on his respectable carpeting, and when Roxas turned his head to get a look at his face, he knew Demyx was everything but happy about what he was seeing.

Sitting down on the couch and relatively far away, Demyx popped a bite of macaroni into his mouth and chewed with a deep frown. "Seeing that made my macaroni taste funny."


	6. Hook

When he woke up with his nose attached to Axel's ribcage, he immediately rolled away from the sleeping man and reached beneath the coffee table for his discarded slip-on shoes. It didn't matter to him where they had fallen asleep or what they had done before sobering up. It could have been platonic, purely sexual, maybe even romantic, but in the end, Roxas foresaw an inevitable let down where he would no longer find himself as enraptured as he had been the night before. Unless inebriated, he was incapable of carrying a tune for another human being; at that soul curdling thought, he began digging around in his pockets for car keys. He hadn't even hit it and he was trying to quit Axel as if he was an alcoholic one beer from liver failure. They didn't know one another anyway, and he would be damned before it got to the point where his disappearance mattered. Even Roxas understood he was in one of life's many limbos. The in between of high school and college was not the picturesque time to meet people who weren't connected to point A or B.

"What's the hurry?" Demyx asked as he entered the living room with a mug of coffee in hand. "Does someone need to pick up their morning after pill?"

"You're funnier when I'm drunk," he said, yanking on his shoes as if there was a blow torch bubbling the skin of his ankles. Demyx snorted into his mug, but the pair stifled any other noises when Axel shifted onto his side and unconsciously pushed a set of fingers into his flaming hair. It wasn't until a full thirty seconds of silence held did they make eye contact again.

"Are you  _running_?"

_Fuck you too_ , Roxas thought as he scrambled to his feet. The moment his thin fingers wrapped around the deadened metal he waved at Demyx and stepped over the sleeping form of Axel. It wasn't until then did he realize Putrid had nestled daringly close to his head. Casting a momentary glance over his shoulder, Roxas sucked in a quick breath before grasping onto the handle and turning the padlock free. There was a swift moment of blatant fear, and he was panicking in a way he couldn't explain. Everything within his thorax was pulsating from dread, but he did his best to keep his breathing continuously steady. He didn't have it in him to freely express the rush of anxiety he got from waking up next to another living person. Axel had been sucking in those shallow breaths, and Roxas could have grabbed one of Demyx's ironic decorative pillows and held it over his face until he stopped for good.

When the rubber of his shoes smacked against the cement porch, he picked up speed and began striding to his car with a single hand pushing through his unruly blond hair. People called it ruggedly kept, but he hated everything about the way his hair laid. He hated his face, he hated the way his heart sped up when he realized there was something gravelly wrong with him still being six feet above his rightful place, and he hated his nurtured ability to keep running until the earth split for him and he could take his seat in the hell he hoped was real. There was nothing special about him: he used money to mask the fact he wasn't particularly good at anything. Roxas was just  _there_ , and he was privileged by parents who bathed in herpes infected money. He hated his parents. He hated his friends. He hated where he was going to college. He hated biology. He hated law, and above all, he hated himself. There was nothing but unceasing waves of unambiguous self-loathing, and all he was doing to better the situation was depriving himself of nutrients and attempting to simultaneously exonerate his wrong doings by upchucking the nothingness within the pits of his gelling guts.

It wasn't until he was inside his summer baked Mercedes did he scream. There was a previous rawness to his throat he could only further by burying his face into his hands and releasing a mournful wail. This entire dramatic escapade was him realizing he was destined to be nothing but a monster's offspring. Sweat was already making the back of his neck sheen when he began slamming a hand against the steering wheel and sobbing like the child he was. The tears were salty and the streams of thick snot leaked over his lips and onto his tongue, but he wasn't revolted because there was no way for him to find any more disgust in himself. There was no level lower than where the bottom of his shoes had elegantly landed, and he was trembling on top of cracked foundation. Roxas knew he was going to die, and at eighteen, he could only pretend he was ready.

* * *

"Is it too early to drink?" Hayner asked before sipping on a bottle of low-carb Muscle Milk while Roxas shoveled in spoonful after spoonful of Lucky Charms.

They were settled on Roxas' bed with wireless Xbox controllers perched on their thighs, and they had finally grown bored enough with Xbox Live to sit in their own enforced silence. Discussions only happened when Olette dragged them out kicking and screaming, and neither of them was receiving replies to the clipped text messages they had shot her an hour before. A silence Roxas wouldn't dare refer to as comfortable was hanging between them like dangling cobras; he wondered if this was going to be a constant in his life once they moved in together. For best friends, Hayner and Roxas weren't well matched in their conversational chemistry, and it had only grown worse since Roxas blatantly ditched Hayner to hang out with the Uptown kids. He could only compare it to dealing with a scorned girlfriend.

"Not if you know your Douglas Adams," Roxas murmured in between chewing. It had been slow chewing. The kind where he rolled pebbles of lead around his mouth with a desert tongue and wondered if he would ever find something that could ride up his esophagus as easily as partially digested Lucky Charms. "Time is an  _illusion_."

"Does that mean we can start drinking?"

"If you want, man."

Roxas didn't say anything when Hayner opened a bottle of vodka they had jacked from his mother's liquor cabinet, but as he sat there and waited for his turn to take a shot, he wondered if children were doomed to be just like their parents. Everyone he had met who had tried to do otherwise had repeatedly been shot in the foot, and there was nothing steady about their lives. Roxas wanted steady, but he didn't. He wanted to know there would be a constant in his life that wouldn't rule his every breath with an iron fist.

They sat around and drank before lunchtime, and when they were done with a good portion of their handle of vodka, Roxas found himself dragging his fingers through Hayner's hair and begging him to plow him through the mattress with his fingernails digging into his shoulders. It was routine. This happened, and Roxas always knew his oh-so straight best friend wanted him more than any girl wandering around downtown, so it was easy. There was something so effortless about pushing Hayner back and working at that hideous Gucci belt Roxas would have used to choke him dead if he knew he had room beneath his bed to hide the corpse. Half the time the sex didn't even feel remotely good, but he sloppily rode him until Hayner came inside like he owned every single bit of the blond, and Roxas enjoyed knowing someone wanted him enough to stake some kind of claim. It was satisfying in the aspect, and Roxas wasn't in tune enough to not think of it as anything but an ego boost because they both knew he would never be Hayner's, and he couldn't even bring himself to find it pathetic.

No matter how platonic they seemed there was a possessive edge on Hayner's part where he had been adamant about them living together. He had insisted they fix their college schedules around one another's, and when Roxas found himself face first in a pillow groaning out the other's name in hopes of coming and getting somewhere for once, he thought about all the ways he could tear life from the other boy's thorax.  _Dead_. He wanted Hayner dead every time he was on his knees or leaned over in the other's BMW sucking cock like the whore Hayner absolutely adored referring to him as. Cock slut was a favorite, and when Roxas swallowed as if it was second nature, he knew he was one. He hated the way it felt when he bitched at Hayner to drive him somewhere to get a drink because his spunk tasted like rot, but he knew he'd do it again, and well, so did Hayner.

He didn't come, and he didn't care.

When it was all said and done and Hayner had watched Roxas get himself off, they sat up and drank a little more only to finally cave and pull out that little brown box sitting in Roxas' nightstand drawer. One line later and they were yanking on clothes and heading out the front door to Hayner's car because they needed to meet up with people. They weren't sure how the sun was setting already, but there it was drenching the horizon in blood and a spilt screwdriver. Orange and so much red intermingling, and it made Roxas believe he enjoyed the concept of being alive because he could feel the universe in his veins.

"Xigbar has some more good shit," Hayner said as he pulled out of the driveway, and Roxas was leaned back in the passenger seat trying to remember exactly how a lighter functioned. Eventually habitual second nature kicked in and he was lighting one of the Djarum blacks he had stolen from Axel without remembering. It had been sitting in his pack for several days, and he wasn't sure why he had waited until then to smoke it. The cigar wasn't even that spectacular, but he liked the smell, and he liked the idea of Axel being pretentious enough to drop what little money he had on something that was only a twelve count per pack.

"I'm in a pretty good place." Roxas didn't want to head to Uptown. He smelled like sex and vodka, but he was sure it was expected, so after some consideration, he nodded. "Yeah, we should go."

"That's my boy!"

Hayner sped, and Roxas watched the lights flood in and out of the car with his fingers tightly wrapped around the handle only to eventually roll the window down. The warm air flooded in, and he was certain he was enjoying life right then. This was what happened. He got fucked up, and he knew he only felt good when he wasn't completely there, but that wasn't surprising, really.

"Act sober—" Roxas couldn't finish his sentence when Hayner and he stepped out of the car. There was a sudden joint cackling, and they knew they were getting looks. Like every weekend, Xigbar's house was crowded with people Roxas could have lit on fire and laughed to tears about without a second thought for remorse. He hated everyone in such a powerful way that there were times he wondered if it could make him invincible. He wasn't sure if he found that thought reassuring or if there was something terrifying to it.

"You look good." Hayner said before they went to open the door, and he reached out to artfully mess up Roxas' hair. "We look good."

"Like that's fucking news to me."

Pushing open the front door, Roxas and Hayner strode through the house and began asking around for Demyx, Axel or Xigbar. There was a haze to their moments, and he was drunk and high, but he was happy in that relaxed yet burnt up sort of way where he knew there was something wrong if cocaine made him chill out. That wasn't how it worked, but it didn't matter because he wanted to find Axel. Roxas wasn't even sure why he wanted to, but he genuinely liked the idea of them talking, and for once he believed maybe he could be loose enough to say something to the redhead that would make the man like him. Roxas was certain Axel hated him. He could feel it in his bones when they were together, but that was also everyone. He generalized the universe's outlook on him because it was just that much simpler.

When he found Axel, the redhead was sitting on the stairs with a joint in hand while talking to a handful of girls sporting University gear and thickly highlighted hair. Putrid was perched on his lap with her nose in the air, and Roxas was suddenly keen on how intricate Axel's characteristics were. Roxas was constantly surveying his face, but he couldn't help himself. He wanted to ask where his gene pool derived from, and he wanted to ask if he could get on his knees and swallow it down. Tasting life in its purest form, and Roxas wasn't sure why people constantly referred to sex as dirty. If it was dirty, then everyone derived from the squalor. Then again, when he looked at it that way, things started to make more sense.

They made eye contact, and Axel didn't conceal a look of surprise. There was amusement there, but Roxas was too far gone to consider bitching about the potentially mocking undertones.

"Someone appears happy to see me," said the redhead before he took a quick hit. Roxas knew he was scraping every seeable inch of his frame with a calculative stare, and there was something powerful about that. He could tell Axel wanted to fuck him sideways. "Tell me, dandy boy, what dragon have I gutted in which gem studded cavern to earn the honor of this consultation?"

"I'm just the messenger handing you the execution papers," he murmured before reaching out for the joint.

Axel didn't seem to find it weird Roxas had the audacity to assume he would hand his kush over. "You're a cruel soul, young lad. Doing the big man's dirty work? Where's your pride?"

"I lost it somewhere between the last line I did and the hit I'm about to take."

"Well, if that's true, then I'm riding the Big Kahuna of disregard." He laughed when Roxas brought the joint to his lips, gave it back, and planted his hands on Axel's upper-thighs. "My, my, my-have you been participating in the act of  _drinking_? You smell like you spritzed vodka on your vitals before deciding to grace me with your daunting five foot presence. Did you finally pick up the handbook and read the final chapters? Booze: The Way to a College Man's Mummified Liver and Premature Death?"

He exhaled smoke. "I think we're reading different handbooks."

"And why's that?"

"Because I'm pretty sure I just finished Booze: The Way to an Accumulation of Burning Urination and False Hope."

"So tell me, Roxas. Do you think we'll ever be on the same page, then?"

"Not unless someone swaps volumes."

"No one can permanently swap volumes either. Temporary visits to the relationship library in order to accommodate the flavor of the week gets tedious after a while. Those worn out paperbacks where we've highlighted pretty paragraphs and taken notes for reference are handsomer in my opinion. I prefer the organic feel of knowing someone can keep a spine together even after being worn through by the endless rereads."

Axel didn't give Roxas the opportunity to pop back with anything because one of the girls had spoken, and Roxas wasn't as important as a blonde wearing a pair of factory distressed jeans she had cut directly beneath the ass cheeks. Blond as he himself was, Roxas wasn't sure why she was talking because he was certain the only thing her Valley girl mouth would be good for was a leisurely cock suck. Too much eyeliner, too much bronzer, and she was  _cheap_. He could smell the Hollister perfume every time she gestured, and he'd be damned before he was seen as a douche for having the audacity to critique her lifestyle. He wasn't associating the slut stigma with her bleached hair and low cut everything because Roxas wasn't someone who had the thought process to perceive sex as anything condemnable, but what  _was_  condemnable was poor taste, and she was one t-shirt away from welfare.

"Come on, you cretin." Axel stood up. "We can talk about life and get emotional over your proclivity for drinking up groundless misery. It'll be  _divine_. Maybe we'll make a revolutionary breakthrough that dense skull of yours, and I'll finally earn the Nobel Peace Prize I've been denied too many years in a row."

"How would that make you qualify for a Nobel Peace Prize?"

"Adolescent angst is poignant in that humiliating way that follows us through the entirety of our lives. Those embarrassing feelings you're overanalyzing and shamefully justifying leave an everlasting impact, and in our own ways, we all take that journey through teenage indignity where we think our issues are really just that significant. For a lack of a better word, it's dumb. It's dumb that we let it affect us until we take that train into Cardiac Arrest town, but for some reason, no one seems to know how to stop it. Do you know how much happier people would be if we could forget those  _seminal_  years? How much people would pay to forget those itsy memories we can't seem to let go of? Who would have thought when we fell down the bleachers in ninth grade that someday recollecting the moment would almost be crippling?"

"Seminal as in formative," Roxas said as he followed Axel up the rest of the stairs. "As in, you need them to formulate a personality and sense of self."

"That's such bullshit." They made their way through collections of people, and Roxas had to take a second to wonder how he was even carrying a conversation. His brain was contracting with oversensitive electrical currents, and Axel's know-it-all persona was exhausting in his current state. In fact, he probably wouldn't have felt guilty about cutting out his tongue at this point. "If sneezing a ball of snot onto your first crush's face impacts your sense of morale, then I have no faith in humanity."

"Okay, then switch your major to neurosciences and win a Peace Prize."

Axel had clearly sensed his disinterest, and he tossed him an amused smirk over his shoulder before pushing open the bedroom door. "So, what are you on?"

"None of your business," he grumbled, brushing past the man and making his way to the bed.

Curled up on the end of the mattress was Putrid, and when Roxas sat down, she scampered up to her paws and bounded toward Axel more like a dog than any ferret he had seen. Then again, he hadn't been around very many ferrets, so when the redhead scooped her up and began to give her Eskimo kisses, he wasn't sure what was and wasn't normal. Deciding he had seen stranger things—which really was an understatement—he watched the pet and owner exchange fleeting affections before rolling over onto his stomach and burying his face into a pillow. There was the scent of Armani cologne, and it took everything in his power not to deep sniff like the creep he could only pretend he wasn't.

"I was going to offer something up, but I'm not into inducing speed balling, so—" Axel placed Putrid back onto the mattress before making his way to a drawer. There was minor shuffling around before the familiar crumbling of a cheap sandwich bag beneath fingerprints. "You're gonna miss out."

Roxas didn't care, and he waited until the familiar sound of someone snorting dissipated before rolling back over to face Axel who had taken a seat on the floor. He seemed collected, normal, and that was when he decided Axel was the enigma. He was nothing but pure normalcy in comparison to what the olive toned man sported, and he wondered how he had spent the last few meetings between them believing he was the weirdo. Axel Diamond was an articulate alien programmed to exceed every person's expectations. He was composed, witty, and assertive without offending. The charm leaked from his pores like oil on a twelve year old's face, and it wasn't normal. It wasn't right, and the fact that he had the audacity to genuinely want to kill himself made Roxas ill. Jadedness had been the explanation. Bored by perfection was how Roxas saw it, and in a single sweeping thought, he wanted to tear Axel limb from limb.

That being said, he didn't have the energy, so he rolled off the bed like a purposeful klutz and flopped down beside Diamond with dead weight. He hit the ground with a thud, Axel laughed, and they sat there in grueling silence for several seconds before Roxas ended up on his back. There was the dusty ceiling—bizarre to him considering  _gravity_ —and he abruptly turned his head to look beneath Axel's bed. There was nothing but dirt and grime, but he kept staring until he was certain the open air had dissipated all moisture from his eyes. Blurred, and then he blinked only to refocus and see  _it_  staring back at him. Drenched chestnut hair, ocean floor eyes, fissured lips, and he could practically taste the decomposition because the skin was a damp towel with supernova combustions of greens and blues like the water he waded in beside Naminé. Shadowed and lifeless but there it was with fogging eyes, and he wondered if all corpses were as stunning.  _Not real. It's not real. Blink._

A boy beneath the bed with a darkness blanketed body, and he took a second to wonder if Axel was a serial killer. Maybe he was next because who he was gazing at was approximately his age.  _Blink._  It'd explain why Diamond was so menacingly perfect.  _Just blink and it'll be over._  There was a sudden string of connectivity where he wondered if it would be appropriate to reach out for whatever was beneath the box spring, and then there was urgency. Roxas was sifting through raw panic, and he wanted to mutilate the corpse of a brunette he had never seen before in his entire life. He was threatened by nothingness. Roxas didn't believe in ghosts, but when that silent scream stuck in his throat like a lodged chunk of food, he attempted to suck in a sharp breath of fear only to reflexively reach out. A single shot of an extended arm, and he was expecting frigid putrefaction only to blink. _Gone._

Claw flexed fingers clenched down into a fist, and he was suddenly panting. Someone was talking to him, and he figured it was Axel, but he blocked it out because what he had seen was more important. The taste of familiarity leaked out onto his tongue like a pill wrongly swallowed. It was acrid and unpleasant enough to make him wince only for it to be topped with a generous helping of melancholy. It sharply faded in the way the final streams in a tub were sucked into a drain, and he looked upward with Axel's concerned face a centimeter above his own. He was all furrowed brows and weighted breathing, and what he had seen left him skittish. It was why he shoved Axel's hand away when it pressed against his forehead. The touch had set his organs on fire.

"Are you tripping balls?"

"No," but then he took a couple seconds to rethink that. "Okay, fuck. I don't know."

"Want to go to sleep?" Axel didn't say anything when Roxas brought his palm back onto his forehead. "Wow, yeah, you should sleep."

"Wait—" He was already hoping they would forget in the morning. "Do you ever see things?"

Axel chewed on that like a cow with cud. "What kind of things?"

"Impossible things."

"Psychosis and schizophrenic things?"

Roxas hesitated. "I'm not sure."

"Want an honest answer?" The redhead asked with half-lidded eyes and a thin line that threatened to morph into a frown. "A completely unsympathetic answer?"

He nodded. "Please."

"I don't."

There was a quietness that settled, and for some reason, whatever was hidden behind Roxas' sternum shriveled. He had hoped for some form of comradery, but he had misconstrued his blind faith in Axel Diamond. He had wanted to possess the kind of faith where he knew Axel was nothing but a timeless piece of art veiling flesh gnawing grubs. He would have been able to yank down the framed work and begin picking through the tangible fetidness of the million lives he had struck down before finding his place within the meat locker. He was the glitter glued across his mirror where he would never have to reflect on himself as a human being because he himself didn't have to register as one as long as he didn't catch the flickers in the mirror. Seeing was believing, and Axel was out to do everything but catch a reaffirming echo.

* * *

"Shake your feelings jar, brush your teeth and put on some shoes."

That was the single sentence he heard after being repeatedly tapped on the end of his nose. Roxas' eyes split open like rotten honeydew, and he squinted against the morning sunlight as if gravely offended. Against his head was something warm and faintly moving, but Roxas didn't even begin to register what it could be until he sat up and it slid down the pillow toward his hip. Putrid had been snoozing in his blond locks, and he would have been thoroughly disgusted had he not spent the past five years sleeping with his mother's unending pack of dogs. Instead of saying anything about how she had technically slept on designer locks since Roxas used Giorgio Armani shampoo and Axel clearly used the same cologne, he reached out and dragged his fingers along her wobbly little spine. She took a minute to appreciate the affection before scampering away and making a dive for the pile of blankets Axel had abandoned.

"I should get going. Is Hayner awake?"

"He pulled a wake and bake and left."

Roxas groaned before trying to pick the crust around his eyes. "Great. Just great."

"I can give you a ride home, but we'll need to make a pit stop."

Axel was standing in front of his closet with his own bleary eyed look, and he was shirtless. Roxas decided he liked the man shirtless, and he spent a good few minutes gawking with his judgment skewed by tiredness. He was staring again, and he knew it wasn't polite, but he hadn't even had a cup of coffee yet. It wasn't his fault  _someone_  worked out.

"What kind of pit stop?"

"I need to see my little sister."

Once they were both dressed and somewhat presentable, the pair left the house together and Demyx cut them both a suspicious stare accompanied by a small smile. Roxas didn't even want to know what he was assuming, but he had a feeling he knew pretty well. Axel laughing and shaking his head as they made their way down the front steps implied he knew what the implicative look had been insinuating, too. He fleetingly licked the space between his own lips in an attempt to dilute a smile, but as soon as he grasped onto the handle of the Kia Soul he began outright laughing. The sound echoed in his head; he was hung-over, hungry, and exhausted, but the entire concept of him shacking up with Axel was hilarious, especially when the dynamic of their very new and peculiar relationship had no wiggle room for the one night stand someone would expect both of them to jump on. There was careful compromise between the two where the agreement to remain balanced hung between them like a loaded clothesline.

"Now, maybe  _you're_  okay with people messing up your low grade vehicle," Axel began while he headed to his side of the car, "with its cheap seats, dated model and generally stumpy statement in the dimension of anything with a motor. Not sure if I'd call whatever is in your piece of trash a motor, but it's relevant enough."

Roxas glanced over at him as he opened the door and gagged on a laugh. " _What_?"

"My  _KIA_   _Soul_ ," Axel dragged the title out in a convincing French accent. "She doesn't take the abuse someone as careless and poverty stricken as you might implement. Just look at this fine cloth made of higher caliber materials than your peasant  _leather_. Windows made of pure diamond and—don't you fucking touch that handle."

There was a quick cough and Roxas was struggling to breathe when Axel yanked the rearview mirror to the side so he could see Roxas through it. "This state of the art multi-angle viewer is more dependable than the outcome after eating three women's laxatives.  _I'm watching you,_ Roxas Eames."

"Whatever," Roxas murmured as he put on his seatbelt.

The man exhaled as he turned the ignition over. "I forgot the baby wipes. The oil on your laborer hands is going to corrode my platinum glossed interior."

They stopped for coffee on the way to wherever Axel was taking them, and Roxas hadn't bothered to ask about his sister. He'd heard the man mention her once before, but other than that, he didn't know much other than she was younger than him by a few years. That was why he nearly choked on searing Starbucks when they passed through what he had always referred to as a hospital village. Little stone houses lined up for multiple practices, and at the end of this wrongfully cheery stretch was a collective of mass buildings looming over several neighborhoods. It was essentially a healthcare and hospital district where all of the buildings were connected by a series of raised and covered bridges. If a vascular surgeon was needed in the maternity wing, then he could rush across one of the carpeted walkways that hovered above the highway and be there in five minutes. Really, it was an ingenious setup.

"You can hang out in here if you want, man," Axel said as he grabbed his wallet. "Won't subject you to the hospital atmosphere."

He could have said no. "I'll go."

There was the sudden need to accommodate Axel as a friend, which was strange considering Roxas' typical dicksmack outlook on dealing with acquaintances. He didn't believe people owed him anything, and he liked to think as long as he treated them the same way, then there would never be much of a problem. Roxas told himself stranger things had happened, as he followed the man through automatic doors. He also told himself this would be a onetime deal. Hospitals were energy succubus, and he was certain the scent of the dying permeated his skin the way one couldn't get a dairy farm's stank out of clothes without bleach. There was something worse about hospitals than nursing homes, and he was certain it was the age range. People in nursing homes went there to die because the appropriate end was near. There was constant forewarned death; hospitals weren't supposed to hold the same promise.

It was surreal to watch Axel interact with nurses as if he was greeting old family friends, and Roxas' heart took a fall because he knew this wasn't a fresh situation. Every person they passed in the off white hallways wearing their scrubs greeted the redhead like an old friend. Again, Axel was sunshine in a place where barely any light threatened to leak through. He was the breath of fresh air whirling beneath the rolling gurneys, and the rustling leaves between the subtle beeping of the cardiac monitors. Words tumbled from his tongue like liquid gold, and he had never before witnessed the kind of human eloquence that was Axel asking a nurse with a tired expression about her three month old baby and pack of toddlers. Feeling like an insignificant dust mote in the soft filter of light through windows panes, Roxas wondered what it must be like to be perfect.

Axel had never specified his sister's age beforehand. It was why he did a double take when he realized they were striding through the white metal doors leading into the protected pediatric cancer wing of the hospital. He wanted to ask questions, but for someone who typically enjoyed dropping words with the kind of gusto compared to Hitler, the redhead's lips had been peculiarly sealed. Maybe Roxas was supposed to be the one inquiring about his sibling? It wasn't that he didn't care. Roxas just had the grace of a ninety-three year old woman on roller skates, and he didn't want to make an even bigger ass of himself.

So, because of this self-deprecation where he wasn't certain how to handle anything, Roxas silently tailed Axel and counted the tiling beneath his shoes. Children were talking to nurses and being guided in and out of rooms, and the only time he bothered to look up was when they made their way past what appeared to be a playroom with windows for walls. There were endless combinations of colors, and had he not known better, then he could have sworn they were walking through a stagnant elementary school. Roxas didn't know where the abrupt pang in his lower abdomen derived from, but he was suddenly beginning to regret the decision to come with Axel. He didn't want to be around sick children. All it did was induce a strange sense of shame.

"My sister is deaf." Axel finally spoke up after what felt like the longest bout of silence on the man's part. He was relieved at first, but then the relief was suddenly shifted into surprise. They were stopped outside an open door. "I'll get her attention and just kind of talk you through it. For some reason, imbecilic fuck wads are allowed to breed and their offspring can't seem to comprehend the simplicity that is human communication without the spoken word. Rudeness and ignorance comes hand in hand, but I can put even your common sense above offending her."

"I can wait out here," Roxas offered, suddenly unsure. "If it'd make it easier…"

"I'm not worried about it." A grin found his lips. "Though you're about as expressive as the Queen's Guard, you should know that expressions are important. If you look at her the way you look at—well,  _everyone_ , then, you're probably going to make a little girl cry."

"Wait, how old is she?" Roxas was suddenly filled with dread when Axel began walking into hospital room, and he had no choice but to follow him. "What's her name?"

As soon as he turned the corner he was greeted by the sight of what he thought was a spider monkey flinging itself at Axel as if it had taken on the motive of a face hugger. There was a crop of the blackest hair he had ever seen in the entirety of his life peeking out from above Axel's shoulder, and when what he assumed was the little sister brought her face back, Roxas was mesmerized. Blue eyes unlike anything he had ever seen, and she was smiling with the kind of brilliance he had only seen on Axel Diamond's face. She was a china doll. Roxas was looking at an animated doll too perfect for words, and he was certain the Diamond siblings had been brought to earth from the deepest depths of space solely to let the rest of the human race understand how inferior it was.

Axel set her down on the bed she had leapt from and turned toward Roxas. The signing he remembered from the first time they had met on the bridge began to fluidly make its way into what he knew was one of the most peculiar forms of communication he had ever been exposed to. It was intriguing, and he couldn't wrap his brain around the kind of process it took to be able to both speak and communicate with hands and expressions. He knew it wasn't uncommon, but there was still some underlying element he both respected and was intimidated by. Signing meant Axel was hypersensitive to human emotion, and that was terrifying.

"Roxas Eames," and it was the first time he watched Axel sign his name, "this is Xion Diamond, and because you asked, she's twelve."

Keeping in mind what Axel had said earlier on about his face, Roxas managed a small, friendly smile that felt foreign on his face, and when Xion smiled back and signed, he turned to Axel. "So, how do I tell her it's nice to meet her?"

He wasn't sure what he had said, but Axel gave a full pause of surprise only to look Roxas over with keen interest and the sort of perplexed yet genuine smile he had never seen on the man's face before. "Let me show you."


	7. Mermaid Lagoon

Roxas had never been very successful at understanding the proper formula for friendship. Then again, he was beginning to wonder how there even could be a proper way to make friends because humans were vastly different no matter how much he tried to simplify his species. That reasoning was the only way he could comprehend Axel's abrupt invitation to hang out with him on a lazy Sunday afternoon. This unexpected solicitation occurred only a handful of days after being introduced to Axel's little sister, but Roxas couldn't bring himself to avoid the voicemail. Not when he had sat beside the man and clumsily stumbled through sign language in front of an understanding thirteen year old girl fighting for her right to live a healthy life. He had been hunting for comradery, and that moment between the three of them had synced in a way that left starlight in his brain tissue. Never before had he experienced such a rush of conflicting emotions, and Roxas had made a point to walk behind Axel when they left. He'd started to cry, and he didn't know why.

"I'm cleaning out my closet." Axel paused, and Roxas saw it coming eight miles away. "That's a really good song."

"And you need company for that because—" He repositioned the phone as he rolled over onto his back, waiting.

"Cleaning is mind-numbing, and I'm a fucking scrounger for human interaction that isn't that of my albatross lodgers."

The blond wished he had something on his agenda to come back with. Something that he could toss Axel's way, spin across his tongue as if discerning whether or not that mundane task seemed more promising than hanging out with the redhead before reluctantly agreeing to drive all the way to his house. That being said, Roxas didn't have a life. So, his next words were coated in the kind of enthusiasm he hated himself for.

"I can be there in five minutes."

"See you in five minutes, then."

Silence rang through his skull when Axel hung up, and he stared at the ceiling with a frown. Even when one of his mother's dogs scrambled onto his low rise mattress he didn't move to acknowledge the animal. Someone was bound to text him within the next hour inquiring about another party, another line, another throw down with his liver; but his embedded obligation to his friends was growing conflicted. Roxas wasn't sure what he wanted out of life at this point, but the longer the default  _nothing_ hung over him the denser his own self-disregard became. Roxas needed out of his room before he began to internally monologue about his life, which was why he rolled off the bed and began the hunt for boots.

* * *

He wasn't sure if he wished he was surprised when he found Axel Diamond's collection of metallic platform shoes. Either way, the shock was null. Tossed into the depths of his closet; there was an impressive array of feet adornments covering the entire spectrum of height and ankle restraint. They were glossed with a sheen Roxas didn't even want to consider seeing exposed to sunlight, and when he finally brought a single shoe into his hands he wondered if this was what it would've been like for the Knights Templar to possess the Holy Grail. He squinted at the back of the cluttered closet and clenched the item tightly. Again, he was impressed by Axel even though his fashion choices were a notch beneath infanticide; and again, he found himself coming to terms with how little they knew about one another.

"So, you found them."

Axel's voice was coated in sticky amusement as he leaned over Roxas' beanie clad head. He wasn't having a good hair day, and when Axel had attempted to snatch it off his crown there had been the kind of life and death fight where Roxas had been choking on strangled whines Axel would eventually refer to as 'pitifully puppy.' When Roxas found himself on his back with Axel purposely dragging his fingers over the top of his knit covered skull as a way to taunt him until the reveal, the blond had affectionately punched him in the sternum. There had been a cough, a forfeit, and surprisingly an apology from Roxas because— _I didn't mean to hit that hard!_

"They're impressive." Roxas held the shoes up and squinted at them appraisingly.

"Seeing you pilfer through my closet is nerve-racking. I don't even know what's in there." Axel sat down on the outside and watched Roxas' hands begin pawing through a box of newspaper wrapped items. "I don't think I've been through any of those boxes since I moved in here."

Roxas released an acknowledging hum. "How long ago was that?"

"Three years this August." Axel's hands dragged along his sideburns that were coming in like well-groomed strips of masculinity. At least, they were nice in Roxas' opinion, but he figured anything on Axel would look nice. "Why am I letting you go through my shit again?"

"You're on edge," Roxas said knowingly to which Axel replied with a faux-impressed look. "Don't give me that face. I'm pointing out the obvious because I know how much you _appreciate_  it."

"Redundancy gives my bits the fever."

" _Oh_ —" Roxas pretended to fan himself like a women in need of smelling salts. "Oh, I know."

Axel's laugh penetrated the David Bowie discography trilling through the background; though Roxas knew he was playing it as a form of mockery, he wasn't bothered. The next item to fall into his hands was a blocky chunk no bigger than the width of his two palms placed side by side. What threw Roxas off was the impressive weight, and he wondered if he had stumbled across another lump of Axel Diamond gold. He held it up so Axel could see it, and the other man gave a thoughtful look before shrugging as if to inform him he didn't know either. They were both going to be pleasantly surprised, and Roxas decided that was enough of an initiative to begin unwrapping whatever he was holding onto. This was followed by an extended pause.

"Erotic vibrating beads…" Roxas' enunciation of the words was slow as if he had been ordered to address a toddler for its wrong doings. To add emphasis on the mortifying moment where Axel had apparently stopped breathing, Roxas said it again. " _Erotic vibrating beads_ …"

Earth stood still.

The scramble for the box was animalistic, and Roxas was certain he had seen Hollywood renditions of demonically possessed human beings more graceful than Axel as he threw himself toward the closet. He climbed over Roxas with his spidery limbs, and solely to spite the man and his degradation Roxas shoved his hands into the box as fast as humanely possible before letting out the kind of sobbing laughter that he hadn't heard from himself until that point. Never before in his life had he worked his fingers so fast to tear away paper. Christmas hadn't even spun the kind of energy he was exerting, and when Axel let out an angry grunt when Roxas tore away paper to reveal a purple vibrator Roxas nearly screamed into the knuckles he instantly shoved into his mouth. Kicking back the box as a merciful white flag, he fell onto his back and moved his hand from his mouth in order to exhale another set of laughter that sprung tears to his eyes.

"It's the entire box!"

"Back the fuck off my collection—" But he was unhinged from his own sentence when Roxas released a dying horse noise. Axel wasn't sure if Roxas was on the brink of hysterical crying or if he was still amused. "Could you be a little more immature about the situation while you're at it? Your approach to human sexuality reflects the age of someone who hasn't even seen their first pubic hair."

Roxas was panting for air when he propped himself up on an elbow. "You're so fucking embarrassed right now."

"I have no reason to be embarrassed about having  _sex toys_."

"What the fuck _ever_." Roxas sat upright and fixed the sagging beanie he had nearly knocked off during their minor altercation. "You're redder than your god damn hair. If it makes you feel  _any_  better, then you should know this made my year. No, this has made my life. All my aspirations are now void of meaning because I just found Axel Diamond's vibrating anal beads, and there is nothing left in the world for me to conquer. Tutankhamen, eat your dusty jarred heart out because that golden sarcophagus doesn't have shit on what I just found in this closet. Where do you keep the gimp suit?"

"The distance between where anal beads and a gimp suit sit on the spectrum of kink could only be compared to France and Hong Kong." Axel shut the box with stiff shoulders and thrust it beneath his pile of platform shoes. The sight alone was enough to reignite Roxas' laughter. "Could you shove something in your aperture before I do you the fucking favor?"

He wasn't sure where the nerve had derived from, but the blond arched an eyebrow expectantly. "Then, I'm waiting for that favor because there's no way in hell I'll stop laughing about this for the rest of my life. I'll be in my hospital bed with inevitable cancer cackling to spite you."

"Oh,  _really_?"

That was when Roxas found his heart in his throat. He could've reached down and plucked the frightened muscle from his esophagus the way a hand retrieves an apple from a tree. This was all because Axel had the primal speed of a feline and had somehow managed to pull a 180 and shove Roxas onto his back, again. The others knees were settled on either side of Roxas' protruding hipbones, and without shame the towering figure with his cutting emeralds that burnt up Roxas' skin upon eye contact planted a hand on Roxas' shoulder. The positioning wasn't convenient because-though Axel's closet was the largest in the house and seemingly spacious—the closet was also crammed tight with miscellaneous items that pricked into Roxas' skin without forgiveness. Not to mention Axel was gangly, which he was beginning to realize didn't mean he wasn't heavy.

Roxas was the first to speak. "There is not enough space in here for you to be a jackass!"

He attempted to sit upright, but Axel had pinned him. The air in the closet seemed to be depleting with every nervous inhale he sucked through his nose, and he bit his tongue to hide any prerequisites for a full course of panic. Someone had grabbed him by the hair and submerged him in a bathtub with the kind of intent meant to leave him blue faced and waterlogged like the boy beneath the bed. He was anticipating his body to become the haven for an entire cityscape worth of squirming maggots eating him for nourishment and whirling their grubby frames within his fingertips, popping free from the underneath of his nails.

A mysterious thump rang through the closet behind Axel, but neither of them paid attention to whatever his leg had managed to throw off balance in the 7x6 setting. What Roxas was concentrating on was the sharply stoic demeanor on Axel's part as he brought his fingers to the blond's lips and began to push between them. At first, Roxas struggled beneath him with a prideful resistance that was screeching at the top of its lungs and releasing sharp punches of desperation, but there was a link too weak to keep his reservation together. Deep down there was the need to drag his tongue along the underside of the man's digits and hum around them until releasing his fingers with a wet pop bound to resonate. Both of them needed to be openly aware of how he was nothing but a cock hungry slut ready for the garbage disposal.

Roxas desperately shook his head the second fingertips pushed against his teeth, but Axel freed his shoulder and grasped onto his then beanie-less hair with the kind of clench that made Roxas release an appreciative gasp. This noise was a form of segue for Axel's insertion where fingers found the inside of Roxas' mouth. The teenager surged beneath him with the arch of his lower back because he had something of Axel inside him. It was the kind of mind contraction Roxas could only respond to with a puffing exhale through his nose and sudden enthusiastic sucking on those two digits.

The saltiness of skin fanned out across his taste buds, and Axel's stare was the kind of raw intensity that forced Roxas to cover his eyes with the back of his arm. He was embarrassed to the point of wanting to shove the rest of Axel's hand down his throat so he could choke to death on a fist and be done with himself. The sexual tension between them had been thick enough to gather and sell on eBay, but he was still having a difficult time justifying why this was happening or why he was completely okay with sucking off fingers. He knew nothing about it was immediately gratifying, but Roxas took that into consideration. Maybe Axel didn't want immediacy. Maybe his interest in anything remotely sexual wasn't built on conventional stilts.

"You should know I don't use those toys on myself."

At that, Axel's grip on blond hair tightened directly before he slammed the boy's occipital onto the hardwood flooring of the closet. Roxas emitted the kind of noise that was nothing but a groan only to suddenly realize the hundred and eighty pounds of Axel had vanished into the main room. He was caught up in regaining the rhythm of his breathing, and the fingerprints of the man were roughly embedded into the sensitivities of his tongue. With an exhale, he rolled over onto his side for a minute and stared at the grain of the wood that his nose was only inches away from. If someone had banged his face against the wall and forced nose cartilage into his brain, then he might have been happy. That being said, there was no phantom hand in the closet to assist him. He didn't have the propensity for that kind of personal violence.

Axel's voice was completely unaffected when it carried into Roxas' temporary self-imprisonment. "Can you believe I wore these pants? Did someone baptize me in idiocy for a year?"

* * *

He liked how Axel's true colors were loud. Loud and beyond the human capabilities of comprehension, and he was mesmerized by the possibility of being one of the first to see his entire spectrum. They never spoke of the closet incident again, and though that should have been Roxas' clue to remain as distant as possible, he couldn't help himself. Not when there was a never ceasing train of entertainment when he found himself dragging feet into Axel's house where Demyx was typically staring at the television after his life guard shift and Xigbar was making suspicious appointments on his Blackberry. They were the kind of appointments where Roxas had to wonder how many times he had watched the movie Scarface because he was a little too Tony Montana at times; especially with his fluent Spanish and 'fuck all' attitude. More often than not it made him wonder what Xigbar was afraid of.

Sometimes they drank and sometimes they smoked, but Axel was overly cautious about doing anything else around Roxas. He wasn't sure if the redhead was dealing with preemptive guilt or not, but the only times he watched Axel snort up crushed pills were when Roxas was a millisecond away from passing out on the bed Axel never touched him on. That's what he adored about Axel Diamond. Other than the one time he had been provoked like a skittish tiger—he never sought to put his hands on Roxas, and there was a level of comfort there. Not only that, but the midafternoons when he woke up to either his face buried in Axel's spine or a feelings jar settled on the nightstand were the kind of moments when the ambience was driven by dust filtering through the sun spilling free from a window. He breathed and forgot about the fact Axel couldn't get him to eat more than a bite full when they were together. He forgot the knowing look, and he forgot the breathy sigh of disappointment and he forgot-forgot-forgot. He loved forgetting but he loved being buried in the moment where his sternum melted because he was so  _there_. He was there with Axel.

The feelings jar that belonged to Axel was full of gold glitter, and when he didn't have it in him to leave the bed he remained on his back and held it above his face with shaking hands. His blood sugar was never right anymore, and he blamed himself for not going home where he could eat in private. Muscles were yet to start atrophying, which meant he was in a good place. That being said, he was entranced by how fitting gold was for Axel Diamond. Everything about it was glimmeringly beautiful. He wasn't sure why he wanted to cry, but knowing Axel wasn't keen on living was enough to spring free emotions he anchored down. Sailing on emotions without knowing the ropes was dangerous, and he had to force himself to rationalize. He didn't know Axel, so why was he so sad? He couldn't wrap his head around the fact that just maybe they were one in the same.

"No, no, you cerebrally disturbed nugget." Axel grinned as he held Roxas' hands and attempted to fix his fingers to make the proper formation for the letter Z. "How your motor skills pain me. They're the bane of my existence."

"Does it keep you up at night?" Roxas was smiling as Axel, again, attempted to push down his index finger. "Do you lose sleep over my inability to learn a secondary form of communication in under a month?"

"When you're asleep I climb onto the roof and monologue about it to the moon."

"That's just plain romantic."

Axel fleetingly dragged the tip of his tongue across the underside of his upper lip with a subdued smile, his hands still working on Roxas disobliging fingers. "Are you into that capricious bullshit with all its spontaneity and meaningless, self-gratifying whimsy?"

"As you can see," Roxas said, letting out a fake gasp of surprise when his hands finally settled properly. "I'm all about being  _spontaneous_."

They knew that was the biggest sack of shit Roxas could've ever said, but Axel didn't psychoanalyze. His preoccupation with making Roxas the fastest mediocre conversationalist via ASL was all consuming. Axel wouldn't tell Roxas why other than that Xion had found him pleasant to be around—which earned a snorting noise from Roxas—and as her older brother Axel couldn't deny his little sister the right to see him for shits and giggles. That being said, Axel knew more than anyone else how pleased the little girl would be if Roxas walked into her hospital room without having to constantly turn to Axel for translation. Not only that, but who could deny a sickly child something as simple as the ability to communicate with someone she found interesting? It was why Roxas hadn't shoved Axel off when the man insisted he learn the basics. Even Roxas wasn't that self-absorbed.

"So," and Roxas began this conversation while drinking coffee in Axel's KIA Soul. They hadn't slept in twenty-four hours, and he still had to go help Hayner finalize furniture decisions. He was more than certain his face was dissolving, and the fatigue induced salivating had begun. "How long has Xion been sick?"

He was flicking his tongue through the foam like a mentally incapacitated dog, and he was beginning to think the weed they'd smoked was laced with rat poisoning. His mouth was numb and he kept shuddering, which more than likely was the effect of an over indulgence in sleep deprivation. Roxas finally took a sip of the searing liquid only to regret the decision when he blistered his throat.

"Since my parents adopted her." Axel rubbed his temples as he stared straight ahead at the closed nail salon he had parked in front of. "So, since she was four? Deaf and leukemia; she didn't catch a break."

"Has she always been sick?"

There was clearly an internal war brewing inside Axel.

"She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was three, and the birth mother couldn't handle the emotional stability or finances needed to care for her prom night baby. She pawned Xion off on the state. She was seventeen and did a lot of narcotics."

Roxas parted his lips, but he wasn't sure what to say. Sometimes there was the impossible to refute reality that someone had been handed the worst cards life could give; but then again, Roxas didn't want to include Xion's deafness into the equation of horribleness. Not when she brightly communicated with her older brother in the kind of way that seemed far more expressive than he had ever been with a functioning eardrum and trained tongue. He had watched her blues expand and narrow during her conversations with Axel, and whenever she was particularly animated her chest lifted as if she had just finished running a race. She was thin and seemed impossibly frail, but in one look Roxas knew she could lift a car before him.

"I didn't know she was adopted."

"We both are."

The blond sipped his coffee, scalded his throat again and sat in drowning silence before he said anything. "I should've guessed since you two look nothing alike."

Axel brushed his fingers through his hair before lounging back in his seat and bringing back his legs until he had managed to turn into the human accordion. Before long the limbs were extended and the soles of his booted feet were settled on either side of the wheel. Maybe it was the fatigue from too much marijuana or maybe it was because they were both internally exhausted. But if it was the latter, then Roxas knew they were only expressing it because they understood. The constant feigning of perfection—though, their genres of perfection were opposites—was rotten enough to curdle organs. Roxas had once been scared about standing on the pinnacle of one of the earth's poles for the entirety of his life, but when he looked at Axel's blood shot eyes that glowed with Christmas complimentary colors there was mutualism. Even if he was on the North Pole and Axel was on the South there was just enough empathy for them to embrace the other as company.

Without thinking, Roxas set down his cup and snapped his finger for Axel's attention. His hands began to weave through one another, and it wasn't long before he had asked in hesitant sign language, " _How old were you_?"

Axel stared at Roxas with his head tilted back against his seat. At first, Roxas didn't think he was going to respond to him, but suddenly his hands were moving with a spidery grace. His expression carried melancholy, but there was so much beauty in the motion of his arms and fingers.

" _Ten years old. My birth mother tried to sell me to a man_."

There was a cutting moment when Roxas could only place his hands back down onto his lap and stare at Axel Diamond with the realization that everything he had envied was the comeliest façade to ever make love with the earth's surface. Nothing was as it had seemed, and he figured that was life. He should have known, and though the illusion between them wasn't necessarily broken it had frayed. Roxas had opened the flood gates for his curiosities, sympathies; and in that moment his chest was on fire. Though he wanted to believe Axel was no longer suffering because obviously amazing people had raised him into adulthood, there was still the insatiable craving to cup the sides of his face and work their lips together until he could taste every encompassing memory.

He hurt-hurt-hurt.

Axel Diamond had been hurt, and suddenly they were both barefacedly human.

"When you feel things it goes right…" and Axel reached out to place his hand along Roxas' cheekbone. He dragged his thumb along the dark circle beneath a glimmering blue eye. "….here."

Roxas didn't move, he couldn't speak, and he picked up his hands so that he could sign because his tongue was a stunned mole. Even the method of physical communication was strained because he was trembling. " _I like it when you touch me_."

Axel didn't bother to pause. "Have you ever liked it when others touch you?"

" _Never_."

He slowly retracted his hand, and Roxas knew the redhead could see right through his thick skull. "You're one of the most devastating individuals I've ever been fortunate enough to befriend."

"We're friends?"

Axel seemed to struggle when he broke their eye contact. He retrieved his own coffee cup, and the way he chewed on his thoughts was homage to his defined jawline. There was something consistently careful about him, and Roxas noticed it as Axel fought the waterfall of words he was so accustomed to retching at everyone.

"We're friends."

Roxas had never known what it was like to have a real friend before, but he figured the simmering within his lower abdomen had something to do with it. The way Axel made him genuinely laugh until he startled himself also had to be a slice of the friendship criteria, and he suddenly realized he was still a baby. At eighteen years old he knew absolutely nothing about the world around him, and he had spent so long preoccupied with the concept of being legal meaning he was completely grownup. He knew nothing about love or pain or the way the earth sat on its axis, but then he looked at Axel who seemed to know everything. A wise man once said nothing, and Roxas had originally been lead to believe Axel never shut up. But he was only making personal observations. What Axel Diamond really knew were things he would never exploit. He would never have a sap story or use his life as a crutch, and Roxas suddenly set his cup aside because he needed to lean over his knees.

"What time did you have to meet up with the Roxas friend? God—what an annoying specimen that one is. If I had to pick between hearing his uninspiring sentiments forever or being surrounded by the sound of Gregorian chant, then you bet your ass I'd be two-stepping into the nearest church. "

Roxas suddenly laughed before groaning at the thought. "Probably now."

From their spot in front of the grimy nail salon that would soon be lined with women chomping gum and spraying their hair until they looked like 80s metal vixens Axel drove him to the ritzy complex of townhouses. They were lined up like birdhouses with driveways bigger than their front yards, and Roxas didn't want any of it. Having his own place had once seemed like a spine unraveling escape. He had dreamt of stretching out on the floor of his own living room and knowing no one could dictate any of his immediate actions; but there was Hayner's car, and there was Hayner's mother. Roxas hated both his father and his friend's mother because he was sure his dad had fucked her stupid the night before. She was going to wave at him with diamonds on her fingers most definitely not bought by her husband, and then she would hug him until he got a face full of her breast implants. She liked to think he wanted to fuck her the way his dad did, and Roxas wondered if she had caught herpes.

"I'm going to run away," Roxas announced to Axel, and when he said those words the air lifted from his lungs and he turned to look at the redhead who was occupied by his paper cup.

"Are you now?" He finally stopped in front of the sidewalk before Roxas' future prison, and Axel cast him a wicked grin. "Tell me where you're going because if it's Neverland, then I've already been there. It's nothing but a bunch of pixie orgies and unpleasant disorientation. I did a lot of 'shrooms my freshman year, honestly. That's the metaphor there."

"It has to be better than this."

He was still grinning like the black dahlia. "Drug parallels aside, probably."

"I hate Hayner."

"I don't even know him, and I hate him. Can we just blame everything on Hayner because I think that would make me feel much better about having to be juxtaposed associated with him via your pretty mug?" At that Axel slammed his hands onto the steering wheel. "God dammit, Hayner, the fucking Holocaust was not a good idea!"

Roxas parted his lips and wondered if Axel was out of his mind before the next words spontaneously burst from his mouth. "And he had to provoke the seven plagues of Egypt!"

"Let my people go, Hayner!"

He raised both of his hands as if surrendering. "Don't even get me started on Hurricane Katrina."

Axel snorted. "You mean Hurricane Hayner?"

Roxas released an exasperated sigh. "The Great London Fire."

By then the redhead had put the car in park and was prepared to keep this going. "World War One."

"The Children's Crusade."

"Quasimodo never getting with the hot gypsy broad."

"The Dark Ages."

"The Black Death."

"Infanticide in general."

At that, Hayner appeared in what was technically  _their_  front door, and Roxas knew the fun was over. Glancing over at Axel with a sharp exhale, Roxas grabbed his coffee, thanked Axel for the ride, and abandoned what had seemed like a safe haven. Though, before Axel drove off, he rolled down his window and leaned out toward Roxas with a rather glum expression. It was a sharp contrast to the smile he had been wearing right before he had stepped out of the KIA.

"You know—out of all the things we've blamed Hayner for at least one of the tragedies is true."

Smiling over his cup, Roxas took in a deep sticky breath of Indian summer air. "And which one is that?"

"Your current misery."

Roxas' smile disappeared. "Not really—"

But Axel was already rolling up the glass.

* * *

There was the dilemma of having to move his things into his new house, and then there was the even bigger dilemma of needing assistance. A majority of his furniture was going to be fresh from the store, but there were still boxes upon boxes of memorabilia from his life he only pretended to give a second thought about. He needed someone he could trust because the real issue with moving wasn't necessarily his material items. There was something much more significant buried beneath nearly every space capable of being considered a hiding spot, and he couldn't simply bring anyone in. There was so much there, and he needed to get it out as fast as humanely possible. His trunk wasn't big enough. He didn't even have a backseat, and there was only one person he knew who seemed hardened enough to deal with his own fissures.

"I was just thinking about the WWE and religion. If a person accepts Pro Wrestling as real, that means that God is real." Demyx was sitting on the ground beside Roxas' feet staring straight ahead when he began dishing out the first thing to pop into his brain. "This rooms smells like bloated corpse and Listerine."

Roxas turned and looked at Axel who could only shrug. "Can we even deny it does?"

The worst part was how they were all completely sober, and Roxas' phone had spent the last hour vibrating between him and Axel all due to him having refused to reply to Hayner since the night before. He could sense Axel's irritation. He knew who it was solely because—after the third missed call—he had snatched up Roxas' phone and scanned the touch screen. The man's disgust had radiated, and it was one of the rare moments where Axel wasn't going out of his way to disguise the degree of his genuine emotion.

"Just turn off your phone," Axel said, sipping from his can of Budweiser. "Do it for the children in Africa he starved."

Roxas grabbed his phone and fiddled with the screen until he managed to put it on silent. "My dick needs a No Vacancy sign."

There was a scoff from Axel. "Where was I when you took that oath of celibacy?"

"Probably being very  _not_  celibate somewhere else."

He grinned. "Little did you know I'm a born again virgin."

The blond's phone was soon set aside, and he looked at Axel with a raised brow. "Please let me take your virginity. That would be the  _greatest_ honor."

At that, Demyx's throat seemed to deflate. "It's like you two stare at each other and someone pulls out their acoustic guitar to cover Celine Dion."

"Romantic," Axel said simply, and he turned his attention back to Roxas. "Want to go upstairs?"

As if on cue, Xigbar appeared in the living room with a bowl in hand. He pursed his lips before speaking. "Chef Boyardee tastes like scabs in a can."

Roxas was soon on his feet, and he made his way to Axel's bedroom as if it were his own. With the man trailing behind him he eventually made it to the bed partially covered in the remains of Axel's early morning outfit indecision. Blindly kicking a mountain of hangers off the mattress once he was lying flat on his stomach, he wasn't surprised when Axel collapsed beside him.

Suddenly, Roxas propped himself up on his arms. "Can I ask you a favor?"

"I swear to God if it's not you asking me to assassinate Hayner, then I will be moderately displeased."

"Well, sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but it's not that."

Axel turned away from him with a weak sigh. It was girlish, and Roxas laughed. "I thought we had something in common."

"Trust me, the murderous intent is still mutual, but I need help moving into my new place, and you're the only person I could stand going through my things."

"Is this like," and Axel paused to gather his words, "some kind of scale balancer for you finding my sex toys?"

"If it makes you feel any better, then sure."

Rolling Roxas over onto his back, Axel leaned over the teenager and squinted at him as if attempting to smell out any dishonesty. "I'm the big spoon if we get drunk enough to platonically cuddle tonight."

The sigh from Roxas was rooted in annoyance. "That's the condition?"

"Asserting my masculinity—yeah."

"Then fine, you fucking tool."

" _Excellent_."


	8. Neverland

Roxas couldn't remember the last time he'd allowed the cleaning lady into his bedroom. At first he had told her there was no reason to clean his closet, and then he had claimed the underneath of his bed was also off limits simply because he didn't see a reason for her to drag out luggage in order to vacuum up a week's collection of miniscule dust. This pattern of her job seemingly growing less and less strenuous by the month eventually morphed into Roxas completely cutting her off from his living space and only letting her into his bathroom. The squat woman with four children and apparently one more on the way had good-naturedly rolled her eyes at the blond every time he shooed her away. She had teenage sons. She understood how Roxas was at an age when privacy was of an utmost importance, which was why she never questioned him.

Sometimes, he wished she had. Had she lifted up his bed skirt and yanked out the blockade of ancient Hasbro board games that were a mockery of his childhood, then maybe someone would've been notified and he could have been locked up with the reassuring slam of stark white doors. Had she mentioned it to his mother or even his father, then there was that undeniable chance they would've jumped on making sure he was stable enough not to outright embarrass them. Not that he really believed that mattered since they were more than capable of embarrassing themselves without his help. For some reason, though, he knew it would all land on him; and he would be the talk of the town. What they did was apparently void of public attention because they were no longer frankly undefined: that was why people cared about him to the degree they did. Anything could happen to him, at this point. His father was the CEO of a slave ship. His mother was a gorgeous trophy wife. He was a nobody.

Axel had managed to goad Roxas into drunk spooning. Of course, whether or not he had goaded didn't matter much because the pair was particularly good at subconsciously making their way closer to one another once asleep. Roxas found a substantial amount of humiliating comfort when the redhead latched onto him from behind and molded himself against his back. Axel's breathing was always strangely warm, but when it blew against those wispy blond baby hairs on the back of his neck he somehow wanted to go from back to front to front to front almost immediately. The urge to cling to the man was obnoxious, and he knew that those moments were anything but romantic. It was a platonic almost familial yearning he couldn't place. Roxas couldn't remember the last time his mother had showed him a single speck of affection; he didn't even want to consider his father. There had never been any glue to his household, which was a kinder way of saying there had never been love. He'd never been loved, and sometimes he wanted to cry when Axel told him he was beautiful in that sleepy unconscious murmur because he knew it wasn't true. He just knew.

When they woke up sometime around noon Roxas knew Axel wouldn't find him beautiful by the end of the day. The internal ugly he tried to retch up would be a very tangible thing that the man wouldn't be able to delude himself into believing was a sun blocked by the overcast. For Roxas this was the end of something he had genuinely enjoyed. It was a tragic car accident in the rain before a wedding; it was the gas leak in the baby's nursery; it was the fermenting dead body in the apartment upstairs leaking onto the kitchen table; it was the fingers slammed into a car door with a resonating bone shatter. Summer was almost over, and he had just sat around with the redhead as if he were his admissions counselor and summoned up a doable class schedule full of bullshit general education classes. Roxas had placed the keys of his new townhouse onto his key ring along with the keys to his car, gym locker, and the safe he kept his Rolex in. Axel had been the vacation from the life he was doomed to live through because he was not Naminé. He didn't have her selfish strength to do as he pleased.

"You want to get something to eat?" Axel sleepily asked him even though he already knew the answer.

"No," Roxas tugged himself out of the man's arms, and he made himself sit upright at the end of the bed. "I kind of just want to get this over with, so that I don't have to see Hayner any longer than what's absolutely necessary."

There was a compliant grunt on Axel's part, and he rolled himself over onto his side before slipping his head beneath a pillow. As predicted, he momentarily fell back asleep, and Roxas went for his leather overnight bag with the bare sleeping over necessities. It was either get ready then or end up threatening Demyx with a switchblade to let him into the bathroom. He wasn't nearly tall enough or intimidating the way Axel was when it came to asserting authority over who got to use the bathroom next. There had been a couple mornings when he had played witness to what appeared to be the great Trojan War in the middle of the upstairs hallway all because Demyx had spent longer than thirty minutes singing in the shower.

"It's like a gay porno," was the only thing Xigbar had said with his toothbrush in mouth and foam spittle spraying out onto the wrestling half-naked Demyx and shirtless Axel. The one eyed drug lord was the only person smart enough to use the kitchen sink.

"We could always film it and sell it online."

Xigbar had just patted Roxas' back. "An entrepreneur, aren't you?"

He forced himself to fix his hair to some degree, but showering was really overrated when he hung out with Axel and his housemates. Cologne covered up any stank of spilt beer and the redhead's black cloves, and if he put on enough swipes of deodorant, then he was certain he'd be okay until the next morning. The rolling out of bed look was genuinely in again that season anyway, and he was okay with looking somewhat like a boy band wet dream. Long ago he had personified the entire concept of a 90s group, and he knew all he'd have to do was dance in the rain while wearing a white t-shirt to gain himself a ten year recording contract. Auto-tune was a blessing because Roxas was pretty certain the only tune he could carry was that pitched noise he muffled when coming.

Before they went to clean out Roxas' room Axel decided to wake up in the kind of good mood that was disgusting in contrast to Roxas' hangover and dropped blood sugar headache. Coffee typically fixed both of those problems. That being said, he was yet to ride up to the Starbucks drive through when Axel began parading around his bedroom singing along to Jermaine Stewart's  _We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off_  and smoking on the roach from the night before. The other sharp contrast between Roxas and Axel was the fact that Axel could move himself in the kind of way that wasn't human considering his limbs should've been the key to every klutzy action in the world. Not only that, but he  _could_ sing. Roxas had never heard him do it seriously, but when he sang along to music in the car he managed to make every song his own. Whether it was 80s pop ballads about conversation before sex or the latest Kanye West single, he made it so believable. Roxas was beginning to think there wasn't something Axel couldn't do.

* * *

"Your house is fucking ridiculous."

That was all Axel could say after they'd drove through the gate to Roxas' seemingly apple pie community. Even Roxas knew their home was outlandish, but he was so accustomed to the modern castle his father had constructed the second his mother had gotten knocked up with him that it took him a couple seconds to recall that he wasn't normal in any aspect. The family home with its twenty foot ceilings and winding double staircase that met a person the second they strode through the foyer was a monster. Roxas couldn't see it as anything but because the grandeur had never been impressive to him. Money was never the source of any fascination for him, which was to be expected considering it was just something he  _knew_.

"Tell me about it," he muttered when Axel parked in their driveway.

No one was home, which was for the best. He'd already figured out his mom's and dad's schedule that day. While his father was plowing his secretary through his desk during a lunch break, his mother was sitting in an upscale restaurant with her army of fellow housewives gossiping and eating vegan panini. From there they would blow up massive credit card bills before having pool boy rendezvous and meeting back up for more dainty twenty plate dinners in another restaurant requiring reservations. All his mother ever had to do was drop her last name and she had a place to gallivant with people like Hayner's, Pence's and Olette's mothers. Roxas didn't understand how they could all be such fabulous friends when it was obvious they hated each other because their husbands traded them out faster than a twelve year old with their first Pokémon starter deck.

The sharp whistle Axel gave when they stepped inside was quickly cut off by the scampering of five sets of paws and yipping. Roxas made a face the second his mother's army of dogs turned the corner, but the second they approached he was on both knees cooing and coddling the puppies that were barely puppies anymore. They'd always be puppies to Roxas, though. It was why he rubbed on all of their ears and didn't even regard the way Axel was laughing at him because— _that's the sweetest I've ever seen you be_. The dogs were a nuisance on most days, but he had to admit he was going to miss them curling up with him during those cool winter nights.

"My bedroom's upstairs," Roxas said with a small smile once he was able to shove off most of the dogs and let them indulge in sniffing Axel out. Before the pair even made it toward the stairs Axel had snatched up one of the smaller of the pack and politely asked her not to pee on him as small dogs tended to like to. She didn't.

"Is anyone home?" That was the first question Axel had as they strode down the upstairs hallway. Roxas' parent's bedroom was in the wing opposite to his, which was a blessing for the sake of privacy. "Or are they indifferent to strikingly attractive redheaded men in their gaudy residence?"

"Indifferent, but don't be surprised if my mom tries to seduce you into her bedroom."

Axel dropped the dog that scampered away as Roxas opened his bedroom door. The idea had him thoughtfully rubbing his chin as if it was intriguing. " _Really_  now?"

"I'm like over ninety-nine percent certain my mother has herpes," and he stepped into his bedroom. "Don't get excited unless you're on the lookout for one hell of an STI."

"The crystal ball didn't say anything about that, so I think I'm good."

"That's what I thought."

There was something strangely revealing about any bedroom, and the way Roxas could see Axel processing the electronic-centric location let him know he was deciphering things almost immediately. His bedroom wasn't particularly personal, but that was more than likely because Roxas had never sought out a personal relationship with himself. Boring navy walls with a mounted flat screen and shelf dedicated to his iHome, the abundance of DVDs he'd only watched once, and an Xbox along with the rest of his gaming paraphernalia. There weren't any posters on the wall aside from a couple of pieces Naminé had painted for him that he couldn't help but have framed, and then there were the lines of liquor bottles: a juvenile testament to his alcohol abuse. All in all his room was about as uninspiring as Axel's was inspiring. He had to wonder why they were friends.

"Would you look at that?" Axel was smirking as he made his way to Roxas' nightstand. "You kept the feelings jar."

Roxas watched as he shook it only to set it back down and return to the front of the teenager with a sudden switch in demeanor. He had somewhat relaxed in the foreign territory, which was the only reason Roxas' shoulders had dipped back down to a less attractive posture. Then would've been a good time to explain exactly why he had invited Axel and Axel alone to help him move out, but there was something else being left unsaid. Of course, neither of them were inexperienced enough to need words. Not when they were swapping those terrible looks of piqued interest that asked such a simple yet difficult question. Roxas' only problem with the entire suddenly presented situation was that they were sober. He wasn't sure how much he could take when not inebriated. The concept was daunting.

"Hey." Axel let the word roll off his tongue with a refined smoothness that easily washed over Roxas like a sudden intake of nerve pills.

Roxas wasn't surprised when they began walking back toward the mattress. Axel was guiding him in that way that left him thankful because this was not a situation he wanted to be in control of. That being said, Roxas' lips had somewhat quirked into a wary smirk that dissolved into a quick laugh. He couldn't continue their eye contact, and right when he was about to say something his jaw simply rolled and his smile grew sly.

"Hey," which was all Roxas could return.

"I know this kid, right?" Axel began before reaching out for Roxas' hipbones. "Well, he's not really a kid, but he's sort of on the in between."

"Kind of sad that you're hanging out with kids."

"Shut your sassy fucking mouth and go with me here," he laughed. "But this kid; he's peculiar, sort of a grade A snob, and his humor is about as dry as the aftermath of menopause."

Roxas suddenly laughed again. "Now is a shitty time to be a jackass."

"It's a part of the charm, I promise." That was when Axel brought up a hand to cup the side of Roxas' face. "But he has these freckles, and when he's not paying attention he gets surprisingly enthusiastic about the simplest things. He doesn't directly say it, but he lights up and talks my ear off about it, and I like that about him a lot. He's also the snarkiest little brat on the face of the planet, but somehow seems to unendingly give me a run for my money. A total bank robber, you see. Ruthless and perfect for it, and he doesn't even realize there's nothing about him someone couldn't want in its entirety."

"Who the hell are you going on about?"

Axel's face was getting surprisingly close to Roxas' and the heat between them had spiked considerably. He knew this moment couldn't be real because he couldn't be half as lucky. Someone like Axel Diamond did not invest himself into a bratty teenage boy with nothing to give back to the world.

"Someday I hope you can tell me."

Those words would have butchered him had Axel's lips not firmly pressed against his directly after they were spoken. Before this moment he had watched a multitude of other people kiss Axel and he had always reciprocated so nonchalantly. That was the thing, though. Axel had never gone into the kisses with intentions of springing forward, but this was different. No one had initiated anything except Axel, and that was why there was a severe lack of ferocity. The moment was surprisingly gentle whether or not the hints of yearning were bubbling beneath their skin like murky tar. Roxas knew they had both been stifling the need to fuck and be fucked up until this point, and he could only think of the letter of thanks he owed Axel for waiting.

Again, Axel could do no wrong, and this perfection leaked down to the way he kissed with sincerity. Lips worked against lips, and he waited on Roxas to part his own because that was the thing with Axel—waiting, waiting, and waiting. He could've waited on Roxas for the rest of his life, and there was something about that reality that had Roxas gripping at his biceps and awkwardly tugging him the rest of the way toward the bed. Moving his belongings could wait. That horrible task could wait because he knew he would never have this chance again once all of his secrets were laid out on the table; spread leg and whorish. Just once he wanted something for himself. Just once he wanted to feel good, too. The pain between them was pent up. Roxas didn't want to say goodbye, but his time with Axel wasn't real; here was his adieu.

They hit the mattress with a rough landing, but Axel managed to regain the smoothness by giving Roxas enough space beneath him to scoot backward until he was flat on his back without his legs dangling over the side. There was the hushed exchange of quick laughing that was finally broken by Roxas' retrieval for his lips. His fingers were soon fisting brilliant locks of red. All was followed by the shameless fumbling around for each other's clothing because this had turned into a game of hot lava where anything but skin on skin was scorching. He knew he was going to die if Axel didn't hurry up and realize he had been waiting on this moment for longer than either of them. He wanted to feel better than he ever had on any high, and Roxas was more than okay with investing his current happiness in another human being. This would only happen once, anyway. Only once was okay no matter how miserable he would be afterward.

"Condom, lube," Axel murmured those two defining words against the patch of skin beneath Roxas' ear in between the kind of attentiveness bound to leave behind celestial bruises.

The groan of annoyance on Roxas' part left Axel chuckling, but Roxas didn't protest as he clumsily reached behind his head for the nightstand where the feelings jar glimmered. A couple of swear words intermingled with his weighted breathing because he couldn't catch the handle. Growing frustrated, Axel finally crawled over him and began digging through the drawer with a quick hand. That was the split-second when Roxas glanced down between them and tried to remember when they had shucked off practically all of each other's clothing; seriously, where had they gone? He knew better than to stare for too long because his ears were already warm from the hungry kissing, and he was two seconds away from growing doe eyed all because they were going through with this— _finally_.

Of course, that reality didn't completely sink in until the bottle of lube and packaged condom dropped down beside his head and Axel had tugged off his shirt while he leaned back on his heels. Roxas had no choice but to get a good look, which was why he propped himself up onto his elbows and took the initiative to give the ginger a total stare down that was anything but critical. Admiration was a better word, and Axel must not have expected Roxas to do anything but take a couple seconds to gawk: the noise he made when Roxas spat in his hand and directly wrapped his fingers around his shaft was not composed. His groan was guttural and thick with gravel. Everything the blond had expected and more, but it was still so foreign on his ears that his only response was to outright shudder. Within seconds his arms were covered in goose bumps and Axel was practically bucking into his fisted hand without any kind of reservation.

This was a privilege. If there was one thing he knew, then Axel was more than just selective. He loved to love, but he only loved those deemed worthy; and that knowledge was more than enough for him to finally let Axel go and lay back with an expectant look. Axel caught the hint, murmured something about promising foreplay next time, and went straight for the condom before Roxas could offer to put it on for him. One ripping of foil and the familiar click of the lube being opened later and Roxas was on the brink of a religious experience because Axel was knuckle deep inside of him. He'd had sex so many times before; none of these sensations were directly new to him. But when Axel crooked his fingers Roxas arched his back in the kind of way that had the hand above his head slam against the mattress, and he made the most undignified noise.

" _Axel_ ," and the way he said his name was a defined warning.

By then the man was on his knees leaned between Roxas' shaking thighs. His tongue and teeth were grazing along protruding hipbones while he continued with the fingering Roxas was clearly fed up with. He absolutely refused to come right then and there because not only would he die from embarrassment, but then he wouldn't get what he wanted. Roxas didn't ask for a lot, but he was on the brink of pleading for Axel to hurry up. He was going to waste away if something didn't happen soon, and this was not how he'd wanted to die.

"Mmn—what?" Axel didn't glance up, and it was then Roxas realized he was doing this on purpose. It was why he outright refused to touch the blond anywhere else but the occasional smoothing over his upper thigh. In turn, Roxas sought out his own form of defiance by attempting to reach down to touch himself. The only fruit bearing from that act was the sting of Axel's sharp slap against his hand.

Roxas actually laughed more out of disbelief than anything else. "This is  _not_  happening right now."

"It's more fun when you're not rushing it." Was the murmured reply, but Roxas could hear his smile.

"It's more fun when I'm not kicking your ass  _for_ —" Roxas nearly stumbled over his words because Axel had found that spot again and made his point of not giving a single fuck about Roxas' opinion by jabbing. "Oh my fucking God, you're a sleaze  _bag_!"

"Make that noise again."

"What  _noise_ —" Another jab, and another sharp intake of breath.

Axel eventually grew bored enough with his own game, and it wasn't long before Roxas found himself anchored onto his back with nothing but endless profanity leaking from his lips. His head was thrown back and the older man's expertise was soon the only driving weight behind each hard hitting gasp. Overly careful, Axel had used enough lube to make the entire moment one of the least painful experiences of his life, but that moment when he first pushed himself inside resonated with Roxas over and over again because he had wanted this. He had wanted it to the point that he was desperately clinging to Axel's shoulders with biting fingernails and only the sharp creaking of a mattress to even out his and the redhead's thick panting. Axel was surprisingly loud even if what pulled from his throat was nothing but a combination of flinty grunts and unmistakable groans, and Roxas would've been lying had he said that wasn't more enjoyable than the act itself.

When Axel began hitting his edge all he had to utter was the simplest sentence, "C'mon, Roxas, come for me."

It wasn't immediate, but the huskiness in his tone shot the kind of warmth through him that forced his navel to dip while the rest of his body was pricked by invisible needles. Roxas quickly dragged the tip of his tongue along his upper lips, dried from the harsh breathing, and within seconds there was the familiar tightening where his balls were taut and he wasn't going to last. This must've been a relief to Axel because the kind of finalizing groan on his part was accompanied by a fatigued laugh as he tightened his grips on the underneath Roxas' thighs and finished them both off with a couple of mercilessly hard thrusts.

"Holy fuck—" That was it for Axel, and with tensed muscles that seemed to force him into rigidity he finally reached between them and unevenly stroked Roxas until Roxas cried out his name. There was another set of tightening muscles, but this time around Axel who was yet to pull out. The man made a quick noise of discomfort because he was still incredibly sensitive, but that vanished when Roxas' defined abdomen was soon covered in thick strings of spunk.

When Axel dragged his tongue through it, Roxas' fingers went straight for the man's hair and he continued to stare up at the ceiling. Not only was he suffering from post-coital stupidity, but he couldn't believe his life was any form of reality. Not then. Any other time then it would have been obvious, but Axel Diamond was currently licking up his cum and his brain was fried. Roxas was just waiting for the sludge to start running from his ears and onto the sweat dampened comforter. He couldn't believe he was about to give it all up. Everything about them was too good to last, and he was going to destroy it before it could destroy him.

They laid around and smoked through half of Axel's cigarettes without once thinking about putting their clothes back on. No one—not even the cleaning lady—was around that day, so neither of them felt the unending obligation to be anything but nude. The overall tone between them was fatigued, and he was more than thankful that there hadn't been some sudden switch in atmosphere where Axel felt the need to pepper him with obnoxious kissing because Roxas knew they were both so above that. Whether or not this was romance it didn't matter. They had spent the entirety of their relationship up to this point feigning ignorance to what was and wasn't platonic, and he liked believing they would continue to do so. Sex meant nothing. Sex was going to continue to be everything but the foundation of their friendship.

"What did you need to move?" Axel sleepily asked with an arm beneath his head.

He could've napped, but instead muttered, "Oh, god damn."

"That's always reassuring."

Roxas finally rolled away from him and began putting his clothes back on, which was Axel's cue to do the same. Once they were somewhat dressed, Roxas smoothed his fingers through his own tangled mess of hair only to walk away from Axel who was still leisurely sitting on his bed. He looked like a lazy cat expectantly whirling his tail about, somewhat bored, and completely unprepared for what Roxas was about to show him. Then was when the greatest crash of self-loathing managed to manifest itself and hurdle against him.

"Look—we don't have to talk anymore after this." Roxas managed that much. "I just didn't know anyone else who wouldn't tell my parents."

That caught Axel's attention, and he dropped the relaxed act. His next words were extremely cautious. "Roxas, what do you mean?"

He didn't know how to explain himself, which was why he decided the only thing he could do was show Axel outright. Before he even opened his closet door there was that rare sting of his eyes brimming with tears. He was a screw up, and he knew all of this was disgusting. He was disgusting, but he was glad Axel had gotten a moment with him when he believed otherwise.  _Never again—it'll never happen again_. The only way he could suppress his need to outright sob was by biting the inside of his cheek while reaching around for the first layer of Ziploc baggies. All of them were lined up so perfectly because the conciseness not only made room for more, but kept them from busting or leaking. The thought of that mess alone made his guts roil.

The first bag was set out behind him, and then another and another until there was a small pile of vomit filled one gallon freezer bags behind him. There were so many more that Roxas suddenly realized even he was completely overwhelmed by the mess he had made, and he eventually had to back away because the shame was eating him alive. As much as he had wanted Axel's help, he suddenly wanted the man to just walk out on him right then. He needed to be alone again. He didn't want to put anyone through his own fuck ups, and this wasn't fair. Roxas felt like some sickened lecher who had lured Axel into his fuckery by spreading his legs.

"Motherfuck—" Axel was suddenly standing behind Roxas, and before Roxas could pull out another bag he had looped his arms beneath the blond's armpits and dragged him away from the biohazard. "Where else do you have these hidden, Roxas? Tell me right fucking now."

His tone was frighteningly calm, but it was the only reason Roxas complied. Within seconds he was on his knees dragging out suitcase after suitcase full of the bags, and after Axel managed to get the basic understanding that the underneath of the bed was by far the worst area, Roxas headed toward the dresser drawers. The bottom two drawers were also full, and then the lockable drawer to his desk also held several bags of fermenting vomit. Long ago Roxas had learned that continuous puking in pipes meant stomach acid could erode the piping. He couldn't continue upchucking his self-hatred down his toilet without a plumber finding out, so he had turned to puking in bags. It had started out innocently enough. He'd puke in one, take it downstairs to the garbage, and pretend it never happened. That was back when it hadn't been as frequent. He couldn't even remember that time in his life anymore, and that realization had him sitting on the floor by his desk with his face in his hands.

When all of Roxas' hiding places were revealed, Axel said nothing. Instead, he stood there and took a moment to process the kind of disaster he had walked in on. Comprehending what was before him was seemingly impossible, which Axel figured was for the best because otherwise he might have strode directly out of Roxas' bedroom and never looked back. Though, he stood there and simply watched Roxas who had morphed into the child he undeniably was. Roxas was the abandoned baby on the doorstep, and no one had given him a lick of attention. Axel walking out then would've been a defining moment in Roxas' life, and he couldn't be that person.

Suddenly, he pulled Roxas to his feet with a distressed earnestness. " _Why_  didn't you fucking tell me?"

Roxas was red-eyed and clearly miserable when he pushed his fingers through his hair. He couldn't speak in fear of slipping up on his words, so he signed. " _I don't know_!"

"Don't sign at me, Roxas!" Axel's temper was rising, which caused Roxas to shut down more. "I could've helped you before it turned into  _this_!"

Roxas ripped his elbow out of Axel's grip before turning to finally yell back. "Are you fucking stupid? This was already like  _this_  before we ever met!"

"I mean—" Axel strode away from him because they needed the space. "I knew we were both kind of fucked up. I definitely knew you were, but I was waiting for you to at least tell me about it, and not like this!"

The words 'fucked up' struck a chord, and Roxas found himself angrily swiping up tears. "Oh, fuck you, Axel. Sorry for not being Mr. Perfect Axel Diamond and not eloquently explaining myself with a shit ton of redundant flowery prose! Sorry for being a little fucking human unlike  _you_! Not everyone can spew out bullshit like a god damn biology text book! But _thank you_  for reminding me that I'm fucked up! Because you know—the couple hundred bags of vomit aren't a good enough reminder!"

"Don't pull that fucking perfect card on me,  _Eames_."

"It's Roxas!" And he was on the brink of bringing back a fist. "I am in no way an Eames, so fuck off with that,  _Diamond_."

"Then lay off on trying to refer to me as something fucking flawless! If I was flawless I wouldn't still be standing here with you!"

"Good point! Why're you even here still?"

Axel finally lowered his voice. "Because I'm okay with  _fucked up_  if you'll stop building a wall between us and let me help you."

Roxas finally lowered his voice, too, but he was panting and sniffing back snot. "Why do you want to help me?"

"The same reason I just fucked you." Axel's weak smile was followed by a laugh of disbelief. He paused, glanced around the room, and then looked back to Roxas. "Give me your gate key. I have an idea. I'll be right back."

Reluctantly, Roxas tossed him his key ring with the community key, watched Axel leave, and realized he was suddenly completely alone. Incapable of remaining in his room that was so brazenly wide-open, he meandered downstairs for the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water. There he waited in the breakfast nook and watched as his neighbors' gardeners slaved away in their front yards while the sun began to melt into the horizon. He waited for what felt like an eternity when really it was no more than thirty minutes before Axel returned with approximately five Rubbermaid totes and lids.

"We're going to pack all of it away and dump it in a dumpster behind the college. They'll think it was a bunch of the sororities." Axel momentarily stopped on the stairs to glance over at Roxas who was carting two of the empty crates. "Are you okay?"

Roxas gifted him with a look of utter complete misery, and Axel took that as an answer before continuing upstairs with him. Not once did Axel say anything about how vile the task at hand was. Instead, he wordlessly packed away bag after bag of sloshing, rotting vomit and only stopped once when Roxas found himself hanging over the toilet on the brink of vomiting.

"I'm just upset," and that was all he managed to get out before vomiting up bile. There was nothing in his system to puke up. "I'm sorry. I'm not doing this on purpose."

"I believe you," Axel said simply before ruffling Roxas' hair and going back to storing away what was left of the bags. "We're almost done, anyway."

They finished up directly before the cook was scheduled to arrive; with a sun already gone, Axel and Roxas rushed to shove tote after tote into the KIA. The entire process was finished within an hour, and after Roxas gave himself five minutes to thoroughly brush his gums raw they silently left his subdivision and headed toward the designated dumpster. During this car drive, Axel had found it in him to reach out and grab Roxas' hand who was listlessly staring out the car window. Both of them were incapable of speaking to one another, but there was a strange reassurance brought on by the physical contact. Roxas wished he had never involved Axel solely because he had never expected the man to stick around. He hadn't predicted this.

Even though Roxas offered to help, Axel wouldn't let him when it came to dumping the totes. He was too short anyway, and Axel figured it was quicker to just do it on his own. That being said, Roxas still abandoned the car for the muggy August air because this was his burden and not Axel's. He didn't care how good of a person Axel was trying to be, he needed to face his own demons even if Axel felt the need to hold his hand throughout all of them. It was only right, and it was high time Roxas started doing something right.

"That's all of them," Axel said with a final huff as the tote dropped onto ancient garbage. "You're in the clear."

Roxas just let out a hushed sigh. "I appreciate your help with this. You really didn't have to."

"We had a deal." Even in the dark Roxas could see that glimmering smile. "I got to be the big spoon and all."

He could only shrug at that as Axel approached him, and he was surprised when Axel brought his hands to the underside of his jawline and kissed his forehead. There was a pained note to that gesture.

"You'll be okay."

Roxas could feel his voice breaking. "Are we still friends?"

"Best friends, Roxas."


	9. Fairy Dust

"We're on Mount Gay Rum," Xigbar announced as he watched Roxas feed his frosted coke glass another slosh of coconut flavored booze.

Demyx was the first to cackle. "More like Mount Gay Bum."

Roxas parted his lips, gave Demyx a look implying he was the biggest dingus he had ever had the misfortune of seeing before handing the white bottle to Axel. The redhead took a swig straight from the container before handing it off to Demyx who was still maniacally laughing at his own joke. Roxas rolled his eyes as he took a sip and set aside his glass. From there he flopped onto his back and stared up at the ceiling fan that was whirling around in that mundane tempo he kept up with as if it were a mind-numbing melody. His lips were cracked and dry like the fissure before an earthquake, and there was the flooring beneath his spine with a crashing heartbeat beneath. He hadn't smoked anything or popped that afternoon, so he wasn't sure where the hypersensitivity derived from. Not that it mattered much. He was in a safe place.

"Upstairs," Axel said, and it was more of a demand as he peeled himself off the carpet.

Roxas lethargically raised his hands above his face and made a grabbing motion with his fingers. "I'm too weak for this shit."

Axel latched onto his hands with an eye roll and effortlessly tugged him onto his feet. There were a couple seconds of unbalanced stepping from where the redhead had underestimated his strength, but Axel kept Roxas from fumbling onto his ass by letting him land against his chest.

Xigbar audibly murmured something about the proclivity of their united homosexuality.

When they were alone in the bedroom there was a quiet moment where they had the opportunity to talk, but neither of them said anything. It was a painful drawl of silence because it was the first time they'd been alone since Axel had dropped him off after dumping the totes. On the tip of his tongue was a desperate ballad like Queens'  _Somebody To Love_ or a tearful Celine Dion song he didn't want to consider naming because then he'd be conscious about the fact he knew a Celine Dion song. His chest was pent up with a weighted sensation he could only see himself properly venting by kicking his foot through drywall while simultaneously ripping out strand after strand of sun kissed locks. There were riffs trilling in his skull, his throat was searing with the want to screech, and someone needed to toss him into a pool of water by a fallen electrical line. This was neurotic, but if Axel was causing it, then he knew he wanted to both persevere and take the first train out of dodge. He was split in two and organs were dropping onto the carpet with defining splats. He would never get the stains up.

"This atmosphere has me walking on baby sea turtles."

That jolting statement made Roxas talk. "Did you want to do something?"

He hated how the invitation sounded more like poor insinuation for a fuck.

"Actually, kiddo, I can't tonight." Axel stood up from his bed with a cigarette in hand. He pushed open his closet door and began rummaging through his selection of clothing with an arched eyebrow. "I've agreed to go gallivanting with Kairi tonight. I think she wants to rekindle some of that magic, and what can I say? I wasn't the one who ended it. There's sort of this unfinished business between us, and really-humans are fickle."

_Oh._

He sat there in momentary cold silence and took in what he'd heard with a furrowed brow. After a spell of Axel rustling through articles of clothing, he spoke up. "I probably need to go organize my things at the new place anyway. Hayner won't shut up about it."

_I should've known._

"Word—moving is stressful, and  _Hayner_ …"

Being subtle was of utmost importance in that moment. He stood up, snatched his wallet off the dingy flooring and murmured a goodbye to Axel that was thickly half-hearted. From there he abandoned the house for his Mercedes—disregarding Demyx's buzzed goodbye that was more complex than Shakespearean lingo.  _He_  wasn't buzzed anymore, which was a blessing in disguise. Roxas had never been an emotional driver, but in that moment he tore out of Axel's front yard with grass eating tires and allowed himself to gun it because he was choking on something that refused to physically manifest. He wasn't going to vomit up what was forcing the acid in his stomach to curdle. For once he was faced with something he couldn't purge.

Above him was a collage of stars dying; when he pulled his car onto a graveled rode he only half remembered from some distant time ago, he killed the ignition, extracted his key and left it on the passenger seat. If there was someone who had the nerve to steal his Mercedes, then so be it. The piece of machinery was nothing but an obnoxious statement piece he had contemplated driving off the nearest bluff because it only further engrained whatever mocking label the town had seared into his image. His flesh was for the people's taking. When they helped themselves to his reputation they didn't leave behind an ounce of meat for him to salvage. Roxas was finding that precipice he had been thrown onto as a child that let him know he would never own himself. This was not the life he wanted, and no one cared. What he needed was to choose a direction because there wasn't a soul willing to hold his hand unless it meant bettering their own image.

Black boots crunched over pebbles as he strode down a beaten path. There was the churning of rapids in the distance, and Roxas could still remember the cleanliness of sharp autumn air sucking into his lungs. That memory was distant, but the words spoken that day were sour on his tongue. They had never gone away nor had the snarky exchange held between him and Axel Diamond. In the distance there was the silhouette of an iron bridge with its wooden planks for a creaky platform bedazzled with rocks, and Roxas could only push his fingers through his hair when the rustling of soon-to-fall leaves melted against him like warm wind. He didn't know why he was there, and he wasn't sure why he had ever gone there the very first time. Just as he had nearly a year ago, he was working on a strictly intuitive form of thought that was as freeing as it was frightening.

When he took that first step onto the bridge the air stilled and every sense of remembrance dispersed like kicked up dust fragments. Staring straight ahead, he continued is meandering without missing a beat; only reaching out his hand to drag it across the grainy reddened bar nearly rusted through by years of elemental exposure. He recalled being nervous for someone he didn't know, and that human disposition made him wonder if somewhere deep down under the mold there was a fragment of hope. It was distant, but Roxas speculated he wanted to love and be loved without even knowing where to begin. There wasn't an instruction pamphlet hidden behind his clavicles, but there was frustration—so much acrid frustration.

It didn't take long for him to pull his palm across his forehead. He hadn't expected anything. Roxas never got his hopes up, but he couldn't understand why there were suddenly tears springing to his eyes and trailing down cheeks reddened by the kind of anger he hadn't even been aware of. Blood was boiling and there was an ache in his gums where he was withholding every scream that reverberated inside his chest. When he parted his lips a noise softly crackled. Despair hooked into his lungs and punctured them until he wondered if he couldn't breathe, but he finally managed to rid himself of the blockade. He gasped hard and the sniffle accompanying it dissolved into a wail of despair because he hated himself for fathoming any sort of possibility. He didn't know Axel, and Roxas realized he had gone from lying to the world to lying to himself. No longer could he pretend he knew who he was, and the only response he could succumb to was a nice punch to the elderly railing beside him.

The next cry was from stark pain, and he loathed knowing he was real. He had no control over his life beyond what he could purge into bags, and he had forgone that private piece of him because he thought  _maybe_  someone would understand. There were no words to encompass the misery that was Roxas coming to terms with the fact he had taken a misstep. For a handful of twinkling minutes with the kind of luminosity that had seemed so tangible Roxas had clung to another human being because he had believed there was potential. He had opened his heart and lied to the only person listening, and that was himself. There had been the silent prayer for connectivity to transmute because he thought he could have another human being, and Roxas had never had anyone before. No one had wanted him either.

"Fuck." He wept into his hand.

His ribcage had been thrown over the fence like a brittle tree branch. Winter would rot him away, and at that thought Roxas lurched himself toward the railing and leaned over until he could see where water frothed among rocks. He wanted to know what Axel Diamond had thought on that afternoon when he stared over this very spot. There were only caustic rotations of self-hatred encircling Roxas' heart and he needed to throw himself over with what meager upper body strength he possessed. His bones would shatter, and he would drown while swept up in the currents of calcium sticking through his skin and river water rushing down his trachea.

"Why can't I fucking kill myself?" And the screamed words echoed in the uninhibited wilderness surrounding him. He slammed his hands on top of the railing only to yank himself up with trembling arms. After less than careful maneuvering he was standing with his fingers tightly gripping a support beam that was weakened for its purpose. His next words were desperately whispered as tears sputtered off his lips. "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

His limbs were iced over, and no matter how high the urge welled up inside him—he couldn't do it. Roxas pressed his cheek against the bar he was hugging with one arm and clung to it like the friend he didn't have. Somewhere within he articulated to himself he was prepared to tell everything goodbye because there wasn't much in the first place. He tried to remember a time when he had understood love to its fullest extent. Roxas was in dire need of some semblance of hope to anchor into; his life wasn't worth the time for a stranger to take that unknowing step of fate onto a bridge. The blond with his baby blues more poignant than an Ella Fitzgerald song knew he would never be beautiful or charming or enrapture the hearts of total strangers. When a higher power had devised his existence it had been a lovely afterthought. He wasn't complete.

Roxas tilted his head back and stared up at the moon as if it were supposed to give him celestial guidance with its pale emotionless face cratered by years of experience he would never know. There were only grasshoppers chirping when another quiet gust of summer air played with his cowlick, and through all this he only had his thoughts. That was all, and Roxas realized that as long as he had those he would have to live on with the itch. When those shattered and he could no longer comprehend the world around him, then he would find the bridge again and take the only thing he truly owned. This would be his place, and he was no longer afraid of the inevitable. He was certain there would be no one to save him, and it was comfortable.

He stepped off and hit the rock dusted planks with a crunch. Breath filtered between his rows of teeth and he looked out over the water and asked himself if this was okay. His eyes were wide, and they absorbed the light filtering through nighttime. People misconceived night as the equivalent to pitch blackness, but he had clarity in that moment that drilled through his skull like a lobotomy. Suddenly, fatigue hit him like bricks. He wanted to go to sleep in a bed that he could call his own and decompose into the mattress like a forgotten person hibernating in a woodland home. A biohazard team would scrape him off his bed sheets after months of deterioration, and Roxas only wished death was that simple.

* * *

Olette found him lying on his back beside the pool a couple weeks before the beginning of term, and when she leaned over his form Roxas scowled at the sudden lack of sun her shadow brought. He had relinquished his desire to forever possess alabaster skin and succumbed to the inevitable collection of freckles across his nose. Tanned and speckled like the egg he had once found outside Naminé's peaceful homestead, Roxas was becoming one with the world by renouncing general human interaction and deep breathing the scent of chlorine from the pool in his backyard. He had hidden his phone in his desk's lockable drawer and refrained from leaving his home because then his father wouldn't have a reason to bitch him into a coma. There had been a sudden need to eat only salads, which hadn't done his body mass many favors, and he had rolled more joints in the past handful of days than he had in the entirety of his life. Not even the insistent waking and baking could curb his lack of an appetite. There was a comfortable listlessness he refused to identify as mourning when really he was mourning his life.

"Pence and Hayner said you weren't returning their calls."

Roxas snorted and rolled over onto his side.

"Roxas," she crouched down beside him, "can I be honest?"

Bitter laughter trickled from the back of his throat. "Is that a real choice?"

"Not really." Olette suddenly sat down beside him, and Roxas didn't budge when she began to comb her fingers through his greasy hair. "People are beginning to talk. They think you're on a bunch of drugs and that you're running with the wrong crowd. All you do is hangout with Uptown kids, and Hayner thinks you hate him."

Roxas groaned in disbelief before laughing again, exhausted. "God damn—fuck all of you. I can't fucking stand any of you. Who cares where I go or what I do?"

Her hand snapped back as if he had slapped her.

When she spoke he could practically hear the tremor in her bottom lip. "Your  _friends_ , Roxas."

Olette left him on the side of the pool, and Roxas was certain he had left himself on that bridge. His brain was churned butter, and the only thing he was proficient at was writing a to-do list for his father's assistant because he knew he was spoiled. He'd be damned before he ordered his own books for schooling he honestly had never given an iota of a fuck about. Roxas woke up every afternoon, considered completing his move into the townhouse Hayner had long since rushed to call his own, and instead rolled over onto his side and watched the drawer his phone was secured inside as if it would open on its own.

Sometimes he found it in himself to masturbate thinking about how much he wanted to come on Axel's face. His toes curled, his breathing pained lips that had long since split with a bloodied crack, and the surge of endorphins only ended on the note of disgust where he listlessly wiped sticky cum off his fingertips and onto the comforter before falling back asleep. His bones ached in a way that-when anyone even attempted to approach his bedroom-he groaned into the mattress and fought back tears. He didn't want to do anything but remain still because otherwise the entirety of his body surged with nerve shredding glitches that forced him to curl up within himself. Only sometimes he wished there was someone there to fuck him senseless because then maybe he would have a reason to move not just physically but internally.

"Roxas Eames!"

It was a rainy Saturday morning when his mother's foreign voice echoed throughout his bedroom. His eyes reluctantly peeled open, and his bedroom stank of mildewing sex, forgotten vodka bottles and cigarettes. He heard his name a second time followed by the repetitive beating of a palm against the door. Assuming she would go away, he tugged a blanket over his head and had to wonder if he had just accidentally Dutch oven-ed himself. The smell beneath the comforter was foul in the kind of way that brought on a quick cough. He couldn't handle more than five seconds before he finally came up for air that was only slightly less stale.

"You better be decent because I'm opening this door." It was locked. " _Roxas_!"

He exhaled a noise of disgust before finally rolling out of bed. After somehow scrounging up the energy to tug on jeans, he unlocked the handle and opened it so he could greet his mother with an arched eyebrow. Since his father had grown impressively invested in his secretary they had stopped having family dinners. It was then Roxas realized he couldn't recall the last time he had seen his mother let alone spoken to her. From how tight her face was it was evident she had just gotten her Botox injections. All Roxas could do was silently give her an expectant look. The bottle blonde was about to blow a gasket, but upon seeing him she seemed to knock herself down a couple notches. She had never had it in her to directly yell at Roxas.

"Honey, Daddy wants you to turn your phone back on."

Roxas began rubbing the crust out of the corner of his eyes. "Okay, Mom."

"Do you need anything?" The state of him was unsettling for her, and all he could think was  _good_. "You've been cooped up for over a week. Maybe you should call one of your friends and go do something."

"I planned on going out tonight." Which was a lie, but he subconsciously auto-responded to appease her.

"Good! Very good, and I meant to tell you that you look nice with a tan. The cook left you one of your salads in the refrigerator, and you need to make a meal list for her."

With a parting kiss on his forehead she turned to leave, and Roxas could only shut his door and stare at it for a second before heading over to his desk to finally take out his phone. From sitting around in his desk on silent it had died. While he let it charge Roxas showered and scrubbed away a week's worth of caked on filth. There was only so much cologne and deodorant could do after a while, and he was surprised when he realized he had somehow managed to sprout apparent facial hair during his fleeting hibernation. There were a handful of things he couldn't do, and not bending to his mother's whim was one of them. Somehow his father was easier to disregard even though he was a powerhouse in more than one way.

Once clean with towel dried hair, Roxas plopped down in front of his desk and turned his phone back on. There was the frustratingly long wait for it to power on, and he was beginning to consider the possibility of downgrading his plan because his smartphone was not worth the aggravation. Eventually, though, the screen beeped on, and he sighed as twenty or more text messages flooded in from a multitude of people. There had been the predictable ones from Pence, Olette, Hayner and the couple of people he considered dealers, but then there was the muddled combination of texts from Demyx, Axel and even Kairi. Roxas stared at his phone for a split-second and wondered if there was a reason for him to read any of them, but curiosity got the best of him. After all he was only human.

Demyx's texts were repetitive invitations to hangout. Kairi's single text was inquiring about whether or not he wanted to go hard at laser tag that weekend, but when his eyes fell on the ones from Axel he could only let out a weak noise that caught in his throat. It didn't help that they fell into an order where instead of crescendoing with agitation it did the opposite. The full force of his annoyance was the first thing his eyes scanned through, and he could only eat away at his scabbed bottom lip.

" _I don't even know what I fucking did to you_."

" _Are you on an everlasting journey through your bog of self-loathing? Because I think you got a little stuck_."

" _Don't worry me, kiddo._ "

" _Xion wants to see you this Saturday_."

" _We're overloaded with herb and cannot tackle this militia without you_."

" _Sunshine_."

He took the information in only to push away from his desk and stride toward his closet. One fitted set of clothes later and he was brushing his fingers through his hair because if there was one message that resonated from that bunch, then it was the one pertaining to Xion. He could dwell on how he was processing the situation he hadn't even begun to reflect on once he drank some coffee and had another long standing moment to himself. Xion struck a very important chord within him, and he could place his explanation-less problem with Axel on the back burner long enough to sit in front of her and have a decent conversation.

Roxas snatched up his keys, pocketed his phone and was out the door within a matter of minutes. He hadn't been inside his car since the ride home from the bridge, and driving had a strange foreign feel. Shaking off his own discomfort, Roxas eventually found himself parked in front of the hospital, and he was in search of that trademark KIA Soul that really was so subtly obnoxious to him. He couldn't place what he both liked and despised about the vehicle, but there was a strange concoction that bubbled over whenever he rode in it. After several seconds of searching, he finally found it and his nerves were set off like napalm. That meant Axel was inside, and he wished he had handled himself more eloquently because being asked what was wrong wasn't something he was capable of responding to. Mainly because he genuinely didn't know. The thought of attempting to explain himself was like dragging nails down a chalkboard.

With his coffee still in hand he strode through the automatic doors and attempted to remember the route he and Axel had taken through the halls only fabled to be sterile. Pungent sickness blanketed his skin like waxy residue. On his way he wondered if he would have to fight with a nurse about seeing Xion once he made his way toward the pediatric cancer wing. In front of white doors that securely swung shut was a desk, and when he approached the check in center the woman was popping gum and scrawling on a clipboard with a less than enthused edge. Not that Roxas could honestly blame her for looking unbelievably gloomy. Her job description was verifying whether or not loved ones could visit dying children, and the bluntness of that reality was the only reason he was able to summon a half-smile when he asked if Roxas Eames was on the visitation list for Xion Diamond.

"Axel mentioned you," she said, almost suspiciously.

Roxas could only imagine what that meant, but he refrained from getting inquisitive and strolled away with an arched eyebrow. He vaguely recalled the cheery décor casting out the shadowy truth of the location, and though he was certain he was on the right track beyond the white doors, he suddenly paused. There was a slate of cork hanging on the wall framed by obnoxious strips of sunshine yellow, and on this slate were stapled in pieces of artwork by the young patients. Finger paintings, which seemed juvenile even for someone thirteen years old, but the longer Roxas stood there and examined them the longer something echoed within him. There was one hand print specifically that caught his eye, and it was doused in silver glitter. Roxas wasn't surprised when he saw a neat signature with an enthusiastic swirl at the end of the finalizing letter: Xion Diamond.

Axel's short laughter struck when he approached Xion's door, but he didn't have a chance to knock against the jamb to warn him because Xion's deer eyes locked onto him first. She was on her knees so fast Roxas only had the chance to smile brightly at her and watch her hands work incredibly fast. There was no chance to acknowledge the fact Axel had turned around in his seat completely with an expression veering in the direction of surprised. Had Roxas seen it, then he wouldn't have blamed the redhead. He was not going to be the person to deny he was an honorary flake.

" _Axel said you weren't able to come_."

Roxas rolled his eyes and gave her a knowing look before setting aside his cup. For a split-second he had to think, but he finally managed to summon back the lessons Axel had put him through. There was electricity coursing through the tips of his fingers as he realized he was going to be able to communicate with her without Axel's constant assistance. " _He was wrong. How are you_?"

" _Really good! Axel and I are talking about the kind of - I want._ "

There was a word Roxas couldn't decipher, and when he gave her an amused yet confused expression before questionably mimicking her signing for that single thing, Axel whistled for Roxas' attention.

"Wigs," he said simply.

Roxas made a point to nod in intrigued understanding before finally stepping away to grab a chair and swing it over beside Axel. " _What kind do you want_?"

" _Blue but like my hair_." She began to playfully fluff her own pixie cut before resuming. " _I like my hair, but I want a lot of colors_."

" _Any other colors for sure_?"

Xion thoughtfully pursed her lips and squinted past Roxas. She suddenly laughed, and her laughter was surprisingly exuberant. Roxas had never heard something as sweet before, and he wasn't even aware of how he was outright smiling at her. " _Purple and green_."

He playfully arched an eyebrow. " _Together_?"

" _Yes_!" And she gave him faux-attitude, moving her head side to side like a cobra. " _Got a problem with that_?"

Roxas laughed. " _Not at all_."

Suddenly, Axel spoke up and his tone was on the brink of monotone. "I didn't think you'd care enough to be here."

It was obvious Xion was attempting to read their lips, so Roxas turned his head and forced himself to face Axel. Then was when he realized the man had trimmed his sideburns down to where they looked purposeful and like artful accessories of facial hair. Well-groomed made them even more fitting, and Roxas had to wonder if he intended on keeping them. If he recalled correctly, then the bet was long over, but there they were still on his face and almost possessing a familiar and permanent edge. Roxas could hardly remember Axel without them the longer he thought on it, and he didn't mind. They were a strong piece of their evolving relationship together, and after a fleeting set of gawking seconds, he reeled himself in enough to respond.

"Your sister is a spectacular human being."

Simple as that, and he turned back to Xion who was glaring at them both. Roxas apologized and continued with their previous conversation. From wigs they managed to trickle down into her favorite foods and how much she hated the nurse that brought in her daily meals. Roxas wasn't very surprised when she began listing off her favorite candies—most of which Axel had to translate, and as the list continued the mirth in her brother's voice escalated. The real surprise was when Roxas inquired about the one food on earth she could eat for the rest of her life because most thirteen year olds weren't going to give her answer.

" _Sushi_!"

There was a lazy relaxed edge to their visit near the end where she asked him about his family and was devastated to discover he had no siblings. She simply would  _die_  without Axel in her life, and Xion proceeded to do a dramatic exhale before cupping her cheeks at the thought. It was then that Roxas had a difficult time not looking toward Axel for some form of immediate explanation for himself. There was Xion with her innocent eyes gleaming with admiration for Axel, and there the two men sat knowing only too well that there had been a devastatingly close call for her. More than once Axel had stared over a body of water and contemplated his own demise. There was something so tragic to the concept that Roxas had to stand up to retrieve his coffee because his eyes had grown wetter than he expected. He had only visited Xion twice, but there was something about the thought of her losing Axel that made his bottom lip tremble. He didn't know them, and he didn't understand why he ached.

When he said his goodbye to Xion she was clearly forlorn, but he reached out and tweaked her nose with a smile before finally signing. " _I'll come back whenever you want_."

To that she responded with a bright smile. " _Always_."

Roxas nodded and mimicked her. " _Always_."

There was a clean line of awkwardness between Axel and Roxas as they parted from her hospital room, and Roxas knew it wouldn't be him to break the silence. He wasn't even sure how to formulate thoughts around Axel right about then, and it was a replay of the first time they'd met. There was so much internal blundering that he hadn't even realized Axel had spoken until the automatic doors were in their line of vision.

"I  _said_ —" and there was nothing more off-putting than Axel when he was irritated. "She wants the wigs because she's starting chemotherapy. We thought she was on the brink of complete remission, but her medications suddenly cancelled out. I'm just glad my parents have excellent health insurance for her."

The sentence was the dullest structure of information Axel had ever given Roxas. There was nothing flowery about the way he progressed through his sentences, and had Roxas not known better, then Axel's typically olive complexion blessed by an overexposure to the sun seemed ashen. That consistent light within him had dimmed significantly, and it was then Roxas noted there was something embedded in that sentence. As easily as he had said it Axel was agonizing internally and Roxas could sense it in his sacked demeanor and inability to even feign a smile for himself. Once Xion had vanished so had the need to accommodate anything.

"When did you find that out?" Roxas wasn't sure how else to approach the situation but casually. Making a dramatic scene was bound to only intensify Axel's seemingly unbalanced sense of self.

"Her doctor pulled me aside today."

Roxas had to directly ask. "It's not…"

The bitterness in the way he scoffed at Roxas' inability to say the word made the blond flinch. " _Terminal_ —no, it's not terminal, but I feel like anytime we get closer to beating this she falls back closer to the big scare."

When they were standing in the parking lot Roxas realized Axel's jaw had fallen tight, and he was cutting his gaze downward. The blond parted his lips in surprise when the man's eyes grew moist, and he knew Axel was scared. He was scared for Xion's incredibly young life, and Roxas had to wonder if there was any implemented guilt for wanting to end his life when she valued him so much. From two visits alone Roxas could see how Axel was the sunshine in her world the way he was the sunshine in so many others. It was then he stopped them both because Axel was silently suffering. There were so many ways he himself could agonize, but when it was Axel he himself found his emotional reserve concaving. It was why he grasped onto the man's wrist and gave him a look pleading for some kind of emphasis on himself. Not Xion's condition but  _him_.

"Did you want to talk about it?"

Never in his life had he expected to hear those words from his mouth because humans weren't allowed to express themselves. Not in his world. Not where his mother was as dense and cut as a diamond and his father wasn't around beyond the weekly critique. That being said, he decided the foreign concept was beyond warranted as they stood there with the overcast threatening to shed droplets over them both. Roxas was juvenile enough to romanticize the concept of the world crying because there was Axel Diamond with a hand over his eyes like a makeshift visor. For a second Axel sniffled back with a soft laugh as if mocking himself, but Roxas watched as that laugh dissolved into clenched teeth.

"She's just a baby, you know?" Axel stood there for a span of time only to suddenly crouch down and lean his back against a maroon van settled in the handicap parking spot. He was concealing his face with both hands, and Roxas didn't have it in him to acknowledge that this moment was in a public place where people were meandering by. "I want her to go to high school and have a normal life with normal friends. I want her to go on dates so I can judge any of the little pricks that try to go near her and make fun of them with Dad. I want her to go to college and become something fucking incredible because she's  _so_  smart. She's the smartest thirteen year old I've ever met, and she wants to get married and have a real family with a good husband and four kids. Fuck—I just want her to go to Disneyland. She's a  _little girl_ , and I know she sometimes wonders if she's going to live to the end of the year. What thirteen year old should have to dwell on her mortality while all her old friends are out getting their first kisses and awkwardly holding hands while watching PG-13 comedies that are cinematic travesties?"

Without realizing it, Roxas' had knelt down in front of him. "Axel…"

"I want to see her travel and have a good life. She deserves a good life." The tears were streaming from underneath his hands. "She's deaf and she's been fighting cancer since the moment she could walk. Her mother fucking burned her with cigarettes as a baby, Roxas, and she was molested by some sick son of a bitch that tried to call himself her father in the court room. She was young. She wasn't fucking ten years old like me and can remember every sick thing people did to her. She has this beautiful chance to be normal just because she doesn't  _remember_." By then Roxas had firmly grasped onto Axel's wrists. "There is no fucking God because if there was one it would give that baby a god damn break. I would cut my own throat if it meant she would get a break."

Roxas' hands smoothed up and his knees were soon planted on either side of Axel's thighs. Pulling down the man's hands that were quivering from a combination of grief and rage, he looked down at Axel who wouldn't give him eye contact to save his life. His eyes were blood shot, the entirety of his face was splotched by red and there was a streak of snot just above his upper lip. Not thinking twice, Roxas swiped up aforementioned mess the best he could with bare hands and wordlessly brought the others face into his chest. He gripped at the back of his hair, and when Axel brought his arms around his waist and clenched at the fabric of his shirt he wondered if he had finally done something somewhat right for someone else.

"No matter what she'll be okay because she has you."

"It's not that simple, Roxas. I want it to be, but I promise." His voice broke. "It's not."

 


	10. Grownups

Roxas wanted to believe there wasn't a reason for him to be the way he was. When so many around him had never experienced an iota of the indulgence he had there couldn't be cause for him to be submerged in himself. Not selfishly submerged but helplessly, and he had begun to realize that no matter how many times he pinky promised himself he would get over his life's slump it didn't matter because his entire existence was a slump. He couldn't reach into himself deep enough to cleanse what had calcified along his organs. His emotional stability was like dried cement on fabric, and he was stagnating.

"I'm so worthless."

"Don't sell yourself short. On the human trafficking market you'd go for an impressive sum."

Axel Diamond's life was a religious experience. Roxas wasn't capable of arguing against that, but when he found himself naked in a steamy bathroom that was currently a makeshift sauna he had to wonder if he was taking that too literally. What had started as a suffocation metaphor to describe his life had been spun into a deep breathing joke by Axel. Within five minutes of Axel inhaling and exhaling as if his water had broken they'd stripped down with towels and blasted the shower's hot water setting. One cloud of steam later and Roxas was seated on the floor wishing they had hot boxed instead.

There was a pregnant pause before Axel spoke. "Do you need help moving tomorrow?"

"Yeah, help by offing me on the doorstep of my townhouse."

"You know—maybe you should do some more deep breathing instead of talking right now."

If Roxas had to spend another straight minute thinking about living with Hayner then he would chew off his own tongue. He didn't need any help moving when his dad had a company on call along with a half a dozen helping hands prepared to sort through his tubs of junk. After boxing up his more personal belongings and allowing others to shove the less private items into cardboard Roxas realized he didn't have all that much. He wasn't complaining, but he wondered what it would take for him to morph into a wealth driven man like his father. He hoped that was a comfortable place to be because his dad's head was full of static and that seemed peaceful in comparison to the garbage he collected in his head.

Roxas didn't live with Axel, but he was around him enough to pick up on a few things. Those things being the way Axel sat at the kitchen table with his elbow propped up, lips pressed against the heel of his palm and face half-masked by his hand. The redhead did this during mornings after they fucked and he drank his coffee straight and rarely—if ever—wore a shirt. His muscles rippled beneath skin when he exhaled, and with his own cup of coffee in hand, Roxas wanted to ask what Axel was thinking about. Summer was coming to a close and he continuously saw the mirage of Axel Diamond fading with the obligations of life. He wouldn't have called it a 'summer of love,' but he had sung those Sublime lyrics enough times beside Axel to think he might have gotten a tip of the tongue taste. Axel was Scarlet Begonias, and Roxas wondered when he had gotten so embarrassingly poetic. It was true, though, and he was scared of never seeing Axel again.

He moved in with Hayner the next morning after crawling out of Axel's bed. A week later he started classes as did Axel, and three weeks later he was waking up on Naminé's couch with his face buried into a green and yellow spotted decorative pillow. College wasn't a terrifying transition. Not that it wasn't stressful but he was only pinky deep into the mess of academics and most of his friends from high school were attending the same school so he didn't have to concern himself with ever being apparently alone. It was all about appearances because no matter how many faces he saw that asked him out to coffee, to share a joint, to hit up upperclassmen parties he was still isolated.  _It makes sense_ , he promised himself.  _You make sense._

"Hung over?" Naminé's voice smiled, gleamed, glistened and she was a gem.

"I haven't been drinking," but he paused. "Not lately."

They went for a walk after that, and Roxas took off his shoes and buried his toes in the sand. He saw the world for a split-second. It was no longer monochrome but the fleeting color dashed back into a realm he couldn't catch to save his life. He was the child too short for the lightning bug, and when Naminé grasped onto his hand she squeezed until he clenched back with a tight jaw. They walked together without speaking, and when they returned to Naminé's apartment he sat down on the couch and watched CNN until he fell asleep.

* * *

There was a slate of glass between him and Axel. His fingers spread out against the smooth surface, and when he'd go visit Xion, Roxas could swear the sheet thinned. After exchanging a couple text messages with Axel the next morning Roxas took his time getting ready at Naminé's, but he still managed to make it to Xion's hospital wing during the allotted time. He was there with a cup of coffee in hand and a large box held beneath the other arm. When he set the coffee aside he didn't greet Axel. Xion was the first to grasp onto his attention because there was something about her that swept him up into a whirlwind of hope. Surrounding Xion were bottles upon bottles of glitter-filled jars, and Axel was tilting every single one of them when Roxas plopped down onto the edge of her bed. She had been crying, and before Roxas could ask she raised her hands.

" _I'm going to lose all of my hair_.  _No one will think I'm pretty_."

Looking to Axel, there was a soft exhale as the final jar met with the windowsill. The only word he spoke was breathy, exhausted. "Chemotherapy."

Roxas turned back to Xion and kept his poker face. Sliding the box onto her lap, he did his best to smile at her. " _I brought you something_."

Her eyes were still glassy when she took the white box that seemed impossibly big on her lap. Roxas had a hard time believing someone could be so small at her age, but there she was swallowed up by her hospital bed draped with streamers and pieces of art stemmed from an adolescent mind dampened by the reality of death. The box's top popped open, and when Xion spotted the green and purple pixie cut wig she stared for a moment. Her eyes flickered to Roxas and she shoved the box aside so that she could wrap her thin arms around him. Roxas paused and there was a soft echo in his chest. Axel was leaned against the wall watching with an unreadable expression, and the blond shot him a sharp questioning stare that was reciprocated with Axel arching an eyebrow. He wasn't going to tell him how to handle the situation.

Hesitantly, Roxas wrapped his arms around the girl's shoulders. "When does she start?"

"The day after tomorrow."

"That soon—"

"It's a life."

* * *

_"It's stage three."_

_"What does that mean?"_

_"It depends how she responds to chemotherapy."_

_"Is she…"_

_"No. Not yet."_

Roxas left his car in the parking lot and rode with Axel. The redhead was gripping the steering wheel and his knuckles were a bloodless white. Green eyes aglow with a silent rage stared at the road, and Roxas numbly grasped onto the arm rest. The sun was mockingly bright, and he wondered where the rain and car crashes were. At the same time, he had to wonder where the hope was. Axel hadn't even looked at Xion until he had to say goodbye, and though he was all smiles and that glaring sunshine he seemed to perpetually be, it shifted into an overcast sky-scape the moment they left the room. He was evidently shaken.

The blond swallowed, fidgeted and then rolled down the window to smoke. "How's school?"

"After four years of post-secondary education you sort of don't have much to say about it."

He paused, surprised. "You're not an undergraduate?"

"I'm working on my Masters. Don't fucking ask me why because I don't know either."

He had to admit he knew more about Axel's happy trail than his day-to-day existence. Had he ever considered it an issue? Not until then, and Roxas exhaled before dragging a hand along the back of his neck. If he knew why they spoke, then maybe he would be able to decipher where lines had and hadn't blurred. None of it mattered, though. Like so many others they would continue to grow distant, and it wasn't until then did Roxas consider the possibility that [ **the** ] end to their friendship could be decidedly painless. They knew next to nothing about one another for two people who'd seen each other in their darkest elements. It was one of the few times Roxas believed he had grown somewhat wiser in the relationship department.

His life was a booklet of conjunct haikus where he simplified his existence, but the longer he sat with Axel the more he began to consider the concept of self-importance. Where he sat, where he was; it was all relevant. What wouldAxel have done had Roxas not decided to go along with him to the undefined destination? Would he have pulled over and slammed his hands on the steering wheel and sobbed until his esophagus threatened to blister from heated rage? Would he have run away and said goodbye to his sister, family and Master's degree? Would he have taken a running leap off that exact same bridge they met on? Roxas didn't know the 'could have been' seething behind Axel's gritted teeth. What he  _did_  know was that he was there and it had done something somehow. No one would do anything drastic. Axel had too much pride and Roxas didn't have the energy to play along with gusts of impulse. At least, that's what he told himself.

"I want to go for a swim," Axel said.

Roxas replied. "Then let's go."

The property they drove onto was the same acreage from the fundraiser he had gone to. He remembered fleetingly writing a couple hundred dollar check before stuffing it into a coffee can and leaving, and then the abundance of paint and peeling skin a week later, but what had stuck out the most was the abyss beneath his feet during hide and seek. The moon had casted an eerie glow and he had been lost in himself. Even then he wished it was night time because then he could see it again. It wasn't often he was mesmerized by nature no matter how big of a part of it he knew he played in the natural world. That was the reluctant biology major speaking, though.

Axel parked, and they stepped out into the Indian summer air. The sun baked them when they weren't in the shade of trees, but he didn't think much about anything except for the test he forgot to study for. Anytime Xion slipped back into his thoughts he blocked her little girl face from his mind and counted tree limbs. The sky was the color of seas he was yet to see in person, and the air seemed thicker than the makeshift sauna's. He glanced over at Axel who was peculiarly quiet, but after an endless trail of walking he began to recognize where they were headed. The cliff he had contemplated jumping off of. The cliff he had thrown his phone over.

"Will you jump with me?"

Roxas was startled as he watched Axel toss down his phone, yank of the silver chains he wore on his wrists and finally his shirt. At first, he thought Axel meant for them to jump to their deaths, and he hated himself for contemplating going along with it because two seconds later he realized that the jump was meant for a follow up swim. Roxas sucked in a quick breath, nodded and followed Axel's motions. Soon enough he was shirtless, and he had tossed down those white and black rings he had started wearing long ago. He wasn't sure why he wore them. He guessed he liked them enough. They were almost spiritual attachments at that point.

Suddenly Axel turned around and began walking backward in front of Roxas with a wolfish grin. That cocky demeanor had resurfaced and slowly bobbed around like a log on the river's murky surface.

"Let me show you what it's like to be with you."

"Are you mocking me?"

Axel dramatically pursed his lips, shook his head. "Nah—not now. Not right now."

Without warning Axel turned on his heel and took a running leap off the side of the bluff. Roxas sprinted to the edge where waves crashed and he could still see Axel free falling when he himself took that impulsive leap off. The tips of his toes left solid ground, and Roxas wasn't sure what the point of this was, but his organs seemed to lift toward his throat. He wasn't sure if he could breathe. That wasn't a bad thing, though. Because he was going to hit that icy water cooled by the cliff's shade and go under.

The impact shocked him to the point that he thought his lungs had dislodged, and every nerve exposed on his skin was met with a sting that rang through him as if his blood had frosted. A thousand bees swarmed him and Roxas drifted beneath the water at a lightning pace. He had to wonder if he was going to drown beneath the pacific calm where he was suddenly very alone. Roxas popped open his eyes and there was the sunlight peeking through the rippling top much like the time he drifted beneath the river, but then there was someone else. It was a boy, but the smaller framed person wasn't Axel. Roxas was certain he had seen him somewhere before.

A brunette with messy hair and blue eyes swam toward him, and it was then Roxas realized he was the waterlogged boy he had seen beneath Axel's bed, but this time he looked alive. His face was flushed and his nose was slightly crinkled as he smiled with blinding teeth. The fear that once bled into him wasn't existent as the male swam for him with an outreached arm. When Roxas realized he was letting the water rushing into his lungs overtake him, he reached up and his fingers firmly clasped onto the warm hand of a boy with eyes to match his own. The serenity of the moment had Roxas believing he could breathe beneath the pressure of the lake.

"You deserve, as much as I do, to be your own person."

Bubbles gurgled from Roxas' mouth. "Who are you?"

" _You_."

There was a firm recognition of the teenager before him, and with a swift tug from the brunette the distorted reflections of water around them shattered like stained glass. He was going to sink to the rocky bottom and die because there was no longer anything holding him up. At least, that was what he thought until there was a harsh tug on his shoulder and he resurfaced. The roar of the air bore into his eardrums and Roxas coughed and sputtered until his lungs began to burn and his red-rimmed eyes blurred from watering. Birds cawed, the wind blew against his damp body, and he couldn't think.

Axel was panting beside him on all fours. "See what I mean?"

Grappling at the rock beneath them, Roxas continued trying to breathe. In some abstract way he was finally beginning to understand what Axel meant, but during that split-second where he realized he was sinking and nothing was enabling him to swim a cold reality had dawned on him. Death had touched down on the tip of his nose with an affectionate kiss, and all he could do was think about how he didn't want it. He hadn't wanted to die.

* * *

Roxas went home with Axel. They swam to the shore and there were unconceivable moments when the rush to tug Axel down into something warm overwhelmed him. His hands were shaking and he continued chattering as they padded up the cliff toward their belongings and returned to Axel's car. One silent drive later they walked into Axel's house that was being prepped for one of Demyx's parties. Before the place grew too crowded Roxas let Axel fuck him with a vibrator until he was screaming. Xigbar tossed a shoe at the bedroom door. Axel told him to scream louder. He did.

They got a standing ovation when they walked down the carpeted steps.

"I was talking to my mom about bread and she was saying how it was hard on the outside and soft inside and I said, 'Like a forty year old man who never expressed himself,' and my mom went really quiet and murmured yes and started crying. Honestly, I'm worried."

That was Demyx. He was standing at the end of the steps, and as soon as he saw Roxas they exchanged high fives. Axel's hand work with Demyx was more complex, but he was almost certain the final motion to their elaborate handshake was 'motherfucker' in sign language. There were moments when Axel was impossibly mature for his age; brilliant even, but then he was very much his age. Roxas appreciated those moments. There was less of a divide between them, and he found common ground with the man.

"But there's this empty pool," Demyx started. "Abandoned…"

Roxas tuned in with a small lean toward Demyx. "Where?"

He waggled his eyebrows. "Why so interested, Roxas?"

"I—uh, used to skate."

That caught his mullet donning friend's attention. " _Used_  to?"

"Life happened."

Axel's arm drifted over Roxas' shoulder. "You're a continuous cycle of cell reproduction, but as you should know it takes the body seven to eight years to completely regenerate all of its cells. I'm pretty sure there are some of those skate tumors still sticking to your organs."

"I didn't know a human being's interests were compacted into cells," Roxas murmured.

"Things would be much easier if you played along with my extended metaphors."

"Coming from the person who almost killed me with one earlier."

Axel pressed his cheek against Roxas' temple. "Considering what you just let me do to your body I'm not going to believe you hold that against me. Plus, you almost dying just drives my point further."

Demyx made an exaggerated face of disgust. " _God_ —you two are fucking repulsive."

Roxas ignored the mutual friend. His words were dry. "So, I make you want to die."

"You make me want to smoke a lot of meth."

"How much meth?"

"Bookoos."

" _Anyway_ ," Demyx drew out that word and gestured toward Roxas with his red cup of beer. "I've got an extra board. We could wreck that thing together if you wanted. We better do it now before I drink too much."

"I do not have the shoes for that shit."

"Don't be a fucking ninny. Afraid of ripping off a toenail?"

Roxas paused and momentarily parted his lips. " _Yeah_ , actually."

"We're going."

That was good enough for Roxas. After telling Xigbar to hold down the fort, Roxas and Demyx sprinted shirtless out the front door and Axel followed them with his long stride. The air was still warm, and Roxas was dreading winter months destined to come because he wanted summer to keep trekking on. Had he known Demyx could skate then maybe he would've approached him about it earlier. Better late than never held strong especially when the three found themselves throwing boards over a wooden fence and tugging their bodies up afterward **,**  Demyx and Roxas hitting the ground with thuds and Axel landing as if he had floated.

The drained pool created the outline of a plump eight. Roxas stared at the magnificent sight beside Demyx and set the board down at his feet. It had been two years since he'd last stepped onto the sandpapery surface, waxed edges with complacent determination and dug through his dad's garage for the proper tools to dislodge his deck. Once upon a time he had been absorbed in the sport, and as he had said, life happened. It had happened in waves of vomit and self-loathing. It was still happening, but maybe he could take a break. That thought was what got him to step onto the gripe tape.

"I won't laugh if you fall!" Demyx dropped in.

Roxas said nothing as he followed Demyx's lead and Axel stood at the edge with one arm across his chest and the other propped up on aforementioned arm. The raised hand held a cigarette and his stare was sharp. The entire walk there he had been quiet, and Roxas knew it was because they'd messed around again. The kind of importance Axel put behind their fucks was beleaguering. There were so many possible things Axel could be thinking, and it was to the point Roxas was too confused to make assumptions.

His wheels ate up the pool's smooth surface. Roxas took a couple minutes to get comfortable on the board again. For him it was the equivalent to riding a bike. Getting through his apprehension was harder than the actual skating, and he abruptly dreamt of returning to the skate park in town. The more he thought the greater his momentum became, and without comprehending his movements, he gripped the side of the pool and effortlessly brought himself into an upside lift that held like his breath. A single arm gripped his board while the other held him up and he gracefully swung back down into the pool. He kicked off and repeated his movements directly in front of Axel. While holding his body up the second time the pair met eyes. Roxas barely heard Axel speak.

"You make centrifugal force and rotational inertia pretty stunning."

Roxas laughed as he brought himself back down.

That moment at the pool was what drew Roxas into something new. He woke up the next morning, had Axel drive him to his car at the hospital, and waved goodbye before heading home. Roxas sped toward the townhouse where Hayner was still sleeping and proceeded to seek out the garbage bags beneath the sink. His hands blindly sought between cleaners that neither of them had bothered to use yet until he grasped onto that box of hefty bags. He was going to need them in abundance to do what he had to. This time, though, Roxas had no intentions of calling Axel. This was a personal project.

His bland bedroom was barely customized to reflect his own interests, but he decided to deal with that later. Roxas made a beeline for his closet. He yanked open the doors and stared at the selection before him with pursed lips and discontentment. The contents were designers he knew by heart simply because his friends did too. Minimalistic pieces not crafted for Roxas to wear properly and he had spent thousands having pieces tailored to fit his mediocre stature and simpleton legs. His face was nice, his abdominals were nicer, but they were there to make up for the vertical challenge he inherited from his tiny money-sucking mother.

Roxas yanked article after article of clothing off the hangers and stuffed them into the first garbage bag. He did this until there were four bags settled on his bedroom floor, and it took twice as long to gather up his shoes. The boots all looked the same, which left him wondering why the hell his parents had agreed to purchase them. Had they genuinely been paying attention, then they would've both realized he was practically buying the same exact shoe but with miniscule detail changes here and there. There was even one pair that was so identical to another that Roxas was embarrassed to realize they were in fact the exact same.

When he was done he stuffed the bags and boxes of shoes into his car and dropped them off at the local Goodwill. From there he cancelled his next hair appointment, headed toward the closest mall and decided this was it. He wasn't Roxas Eames the brooding teenager meant to inherit a Pandora's Box of misery. He was Roxas, and he was going to dress however he wanted because he was old enough to not give a fuck. He wasn't going to cut his hair unless he couldn't take it anymore, and if he wanted sideburns, then he was going to grow them out. He wasn't too sure about the facial hair, but seeing it on Axel enough made him think it was a possibility. Roxas had decided to take the first steps toward stripping himself down and rebuilding. Even if there wasn't an immediate fix to his interiors there definitely was one to his exterior. He had to start somewhere.

It took him an hour to become an Obey poster boy. He was snapbacks and hoodies with shoes that could grip, and with bags upon bags of clothing shoved into his backseat he took his final stop rather seriously. Roxas needed his own board because for him returning to that groove of life where he didn't have to think was the foreign solace he had been looking for. For once he identified with Naminé. He understood exactly why she was so engrossed in her painting and dreams and aspirations. They were a distraction from the real world. He needed less of the real world and a handful of dreams to make it through the rest of his life.

* * *

It was a day later when Roxas saw Hayner again due to their conflicting schedules, and at first he thought Roxas was joking. That is until he realized Roxas' humor spectrum was about as broad as Hitler's moral spectrum. He had stepped into Roxas' doorway with intentions of asking him about what pizza toppings he preferred, and there the blond was seated on his bedroom floor with a naked deck on his lap and an abundance of skateboarding parts he knew next to nothing about surrounding him. Roxas was sleeveless, his hair was disheveled, and in Hayner's uneducated opinion, he looked like he had finally broken and down and started dabbling in heroin.

"What the fuck kind of look is that?"

Roxas snapped his focus up from the skateboard he was in the midst of customizing. "Mine."

Hayner seemed taken aback by Roxas' attitude, but he laughed it off. "You look kind of rough, though."

"And you've looked the exact same since our freshman year of high school."

A stare off ensued. Roxas knew he was going to pay for that dearly. Later on there would be dick in his throat and he would be sucking on Hayner's sweaty balls while thinking about Axel and whether or not chemotherapy would pan out for Xion. He would let it happen, but he would be a despondent couch cushion that had to wonder why he told himself and others he was close to Hayner. For two people who connected their bodies in the most intimate way imaginable Roxas didn't believe they had any other linking. It was forced—quite literally—and not only that but fake. All of the relationships that had survived high school were just that: fake.

Before Hayner could condemn him to the worst anal sex of his life Roxas gathered up his belongings and hightailed it to Axel's house. He hadn't called ahead, which wasn't all that unusual for them. Roxas had gotten to the point that he was able to simply walk into Axel's house, but that night it was even less peculiar to do so because there were quite a few people wandering in and out of the tiny three bedroom house. He pulled up in his car, and when he stepped out he recalled the first night he had shown up to the haven with Hayner.

"Roxas Eames?"

The voice was thickly accented, and Roxas turned to see Kairi sitting on the hood of the KIA Soul beside Axel. There were a couple beers settled between them and Roxas waved before striding toward the pair. Immediately she was running her mouth a million miles per hour to the point that Roxas wasn't exactly sure if she was speaking English or German. Axel seemed to follow her without fail, but Roxas was quick to deliberate the possibility the redhead was only being his impeccably polite and charming self for the sake of feelings.

She grasped onto Roxas' shoulder. "You look great. I like you in color!"

"Thanks—" But he was cut off.

"Why're you here?" Had Axel not said it with such a sly implicative grin then Roxas might have been put off. Instantly they were looking at one another and Kairi was a fleeting memory. "Need to talk?"

Roxas narrowed his eyes at Axel for a moment before cautiously speaking. "Yeah,  _talk_ …"

"Kairi," Axel slung his arm around Kairi's shoulder and brought her close. "You see I have business to attend to of the professional sort—"

"Do not bullshit me, Diamond."

"We'll go out to lunch tomorrow, I promise."

Axel slid off the hood of his car and motioned for Roxas to follow him. There was a looming silence between them before the taller of the two decided to start talking again. He was doing his best to inquire about Roxas' wardrobe change without being too direct or appreciative for it. There was a fine line of insulting relief and complimenting when it came down to the matter. Roxas could tell he was struggling.

"I got sick of my old shit."

Axel jumped on the invitation. "Looks good, seamless choice, practically unadulterated and…"

"Look—as badly as I used to dress and as much as I want to hang out in your bedroom for the next hour there's something I need to tell you that I don't think I can tell anyone else."

That forced the redhead's rare almost inconceivable nervousness to drift. The two made their way up the stained steps and on toward his bedroom before Axel furrowed his brow. "What's going on?"

Roxas stepped into Axel's dimly lit room and waited for the man to follow. He shut the door behind them and leaned back against the wooden surface. "I need to tell you about Hayner."

 


	11. Wishing Stars

 

_"I've been messing around with Hayner."_

_"But you've reiterated your hate for him multiple times."_

_"I know. I do hate him."_

_"You know I kind of thought we were…"_

_"Me too."_

_"Right, then why do you fuck around with him?"_

_"I don't choose to."_

_"Roxas, listen to me. That's…"_

Roxas' story was about love. It was the love of grinding his frame on Kairi when he drank too much vodka and needed to involuntarily vomit. The love of Naminé reminding him that he was a human being like everyone else with a heart and veins and arteries that bled the same vibrant blood as those around him. The love of roaming through thick woods with strangers who always seemed ready to dance with their lit menthols and disregard for life's aches. They were lifted kids who had backgrounds of molten lava but before them were sown plains of green grass. No one had made life better without trying, and Roxas worked through those loves while coming to terms with the three most important types; romantic, platonic and self. Where he stood among those three was still a blur, but the longer he spilled his guts to Axel the clearer the first two became.

Xion began chemotherapy as soon as Axel said she would, but Roxas had class during her first round of treatment and Axel wouldn't discuss exactly what happened after Roxas stuttered over his questions. He went the second time and met Xion's oncologist along with Axel's parents. They were a cheerful pair of human beings that fell into the background while simultaneously paying Roxas no mind. Not that he considered their indifference insulting. Their young daughter was fighting for her life, and the longer he was around them the more he began to come to terms with the fact things weren't quite as uncertain as Axel had led him to believe. This wasn't just cerebrospinal injections bound to help her. This was a desperate war, and Roxas had never seen Axel as tired as he was until he saw him stare at Xion while she underwent her own personal hell.

What had once been every Saturday visits morphed into every other day and a sudden in depth lesson on the technicalities of chemotherapy. There was more than Roxas knew how to process, but he understood enough to know what which treatment required, what her medicines meant, and Roxas found it cruel how her oral medications were meant to cure the sicknesses chemotherapy implemented. He couldn't tell if she was genuinely getting better or if treatment was breaking her down faster. More than once he had stepped into the hospital room to see Axel sleeping on the bed beside Xion. She had grown partial to naps and her neediness for both Axel and Roxas had become all-consuming. If she wanted to see him he left in the middle of his lectures, tests and labs. When he wasn't in class or roaming the skate parks with Demyx, then he was sitting in a hospital chair watching her tell stories about the days before she was confined to a hospital.

" _When you get out we'll take you to the beach to go swimming_." Roxas always promised her she would leave. " _But I think the first thing we'll do is get you ice cream_."

Xion laughed and weakly moved her hands. " _Are you and my brother best friends_?"

Surprised, Roxas gave her a thoughtful look, smiling. " _Yes. I'm sure we are_."

" _Are you my best friend_?"

There was a surge of happiness that struck him, and he nodded. " _Of course I am_."

" _Good. Because I think you're my best friend, too_.  _Just like my brother_."

" _But not as good of a best friend as your brother_."

Xion furrowed her brow. " _You're both perfect to me_."

Even though his methods had proven to be unconventional and even dangerous Roxas still saw Axel as the perfect one out of the two of them. He wished he was half as immaculate as both Axel and Xion Diamond because there was something there that had cut and polished the two. He had a feeling he would never understand it what it was, but maybe that was for the best. Beauty without pain just didn't seem possible for the pair, and he doubted he was strong enough to bear it all.

The autumn air was beginning to roll in when Roxas found himself walking along the row of trees for the cancer patients who hadn't made it. He read one name after another on their golden plaques, processed the ages of those who'd passed, and Roxas wondered if anyone made it through treatment. There were so many of those saplings in their neat rows with spindly branches. He wanted to know what happened when the hospital eventually ran out of room. Would someone be forgotten? Would there be a treeless life, a person who just didn't die in time and make the cut? The pondering continued as he did his best to swallow down the thought of seeing Xion's name. The clouds smoothed across the sky, leaves threatened to fall onto the sidewalk, and Roxas couldn't remember when he had started thinking more about death than dying.

He spotted Axel while taking the same path back to Xion's room. The redhead's hands were deep in his back pockets and he was doing exactly what Roxas had. Jade narrowed eyes swept along name after name, and his shoulders were faintly hunched as if he had turned into himself. Roxas stopped where he was and faintly laughed when Axel brought his hands out of his pockets in order to sign a greeting at him. Instead of rolling directly into spoken English Roxas placed the cigarette filter into the corner of his mouth and signed back a greeting.

" _Did she go to sleep_?"

Axel exhaled. " _I told her you'd be back to tell her goodbye, but yeah_."

" _Are you okay_?"

" _Perfect_."

Roxas blinked. Something forced the ground to ripple beneath him, and he looked at the man with eyes widened in disbelief. Axel had said something to shatter the glass he had dragged the tips of his fingers over multiple times. Little had Roxas known the glass wasn't just walls and ceiling but also flooring.

" _No you're not_."

" _You think so_?"

Axel dropped his hands and then dragged them through his hair. He looked away from Roxas, chewed on the inside of his cheek, and Roxas pushed the heel of his palm along his temple while gazing down at the sidewalk with a neutral expression. Facades and misconceptions took a moment to circle the drain, but the moment was hardly as painful as either one of them had expected it to be. The wind took a moment to gust between them, but it fell silent as if inviting one of them to speak. Neither took the opportunity, and Roxas wasn't sure what was wrong, but Axel was swallowing a lump he should've choked on. Axel's fatigue was as brilliant as his exuberance, but Roxas wondered if those deepening circles beneath his eyes, the subtle blood filled lines that speckled his lips from where he had gnawed, and hollow cheeks were the eventual results for people who played a role too long.

He was beginning to realize humans were frail and sensitive creatures even when they are aware. A man's little sister is dying from cancer so there's going to be inevitable sadness, but he's still surprised it devours him from the inside out. A man reluctantly has sex with another he would rather puke on than orgasm for so there's going to be precedent self-loathing, but he's still surprised it makes him want to rip his ribs out. Roxas wasn't sure what that meant or how to apply it to himself, but he had a feeling it simply meant he would never be prepared for life. Then again, who was prepared? At the end of the day maybe that was the point.

Roxas finally spoke. "I know so."

* * *

Roxas was the kind of human who wasn't allowed to have good things last. In the back of his mind he knew this to be true, but on a Sunday evening in the midst of midterms he was forced to come to terms with that truth.

The front door to Axel's house was perpetually unlocked. Rarely was someone not there, and even when there weren't cars someone had a knack for being inside. Whether it was a girlfriend sleeping the day away or a friend visiting, Roxas couldn't comprehend the concept of a person not being in the house. Not that any of that mattered because on this said Sunday Axel was home. Sometimes Roxas had to wonder what the hell the man actually did for a living. Demyx had called him a pusher, but that only brought in so much money without taking a huge risk. He continuously attempted to leave mental notes about asking about Axel's job, but they always ended up displaced during their conversations.

Fixing his snapback and sweeping his bangs until they were elegantly settled along his forehead, Roxas stepped out of his car and jogged straight for the door. He figured Axel was still asleep due to him not answering his text messages, and this wouldn't have been the first time he came over without direct invitation. Had Axel not absolutely hated Hayner with his entire being, then the house invading might have been mutual, but there was nothing relaxed about Roxas' townhouse. Plus, Roxas didn't want to think about all of the tension he would have to live through if Hayner and Axel saw each other. His skin crawled at the thought.

When he headed toward the stairs there was the sound of someone yelling upstairs, and he figured from the whining pitch it was Demyx getting backhanded by Xigbar for something along the lines of shaving his pubes with his razor again. That fight had ended with a black eye for Demyx, but the follow up was even better. Anytime Xigbar got a new razor Demyx left behind a nice couple of wiry blond hairs. Demyx refusing to let up eventually ended on the note of Xigbar hiding his new disposable razors and leaving behind the rusted ones. It wasn't long before Demyx raised his white flag and began buying his own for the sake of peace.

Roxas was wrong, though. The sound wasn't Demyx, and it in fact was a girl apparently being drilled within an inch of her life. Kairi, to be specific, and though Roxas sucked in a quiet breath to dissolve an assumption and sinking feeling, he decided there was always the chance someone else was home. Xigbar had been putting the sleaziest moves on Kairi imaginable, and he wouldn't have been surprised had she humored him for a go. There was something about the girl that was both empowering all while being heinously cute. Roxas wouldn't have wanted to get into a fight of wills. Even a physical one made him somewhat apprehensive. For someone so painfully thin she still had what Axel referred to as 'whispering muscles.'

Shamelessly, the blond had intended on eavesdropping outside Xigbar's door for a listen. He faintly remembered having sex with her, but that was so long ago for him and he had been drinking. She had been good, but that was only because he couldn't see anything and her chest was flatter than an Indiana cornfield. Kairi was also loud, and she hadn't been any quieter with him than she was with Xigbar. When he reached the stairs' landing Roxas realized something. Xigbar's bedroom was on one end of the upstairs hallway while Axel's was on the opposite side. It was why when Roxas got loud while Axel and he were fucking it was definitely pushing the limits of polite. Any thrown objects were justified on Xigbar's end, and Roxas didn't argue back.

Kairi's groaning that sounded like low-budget foreign pornographic film were coming from Axel's end of the hall. The breath he took ricocheted around his lungs like a bullet, and he fiddled with his hands for a moment before taking a couple steps toward Axel's bedroom door. His heart was pounding in his chest at the kind of pace that would've concerned him had he not been too shaken to notice. A shot of anger lit through him until the ends of his fingers began to tingle. Roxas was immediately propelled into the kind of emotional onset that made his fingers cramp because he was trying to fight back the need to ball them up into fists. All of this was punctuated by the moment when he heard Axel's laughter. His chest sank in and the only thing he could do was ask the world why. Had he tried to fight the natural workings of his life too hard? Roxas hadn't even started his life let alone believed he deserved the universe's backlash.

At first he paced. He listened to them fuck one another at the kind of ferocity that seemed so free and comfortable. Roxas wasn't comfortable with himself, but there Kairi was older and more experienced in adult sex.  _No wonder_ , but he didn't let himself react the childish way he wanted to. He could've walked out of that house, changed his number and deleted Axel from his life, but an impression needed to be left. Whether or not that impression was even more childish wasn't a concern to him. Roxas began striding toward Axel's bedroom door with his fists finally clenched and red pooling around him, clotting, twisting and finally choking his common sense.

His fingers wrapped around the door handle he had grasped onto so many times before, and he couldn't remember when walking through Axel's life without reservations had grown natural. The door was thrown open, and he only saw a couple seconds of Axel's naked hips snapping forward between Kairi's impossibly thin legs, but it was enough to strike a match. He was consumed by fire, and as his skin began to bubble and char the only thing he did was laugh. Yanking off his hat as Kairi began swearing in both English and fumbling through angry German, Roxas watched as she shoved Axel off of her and the redheaded man couldn't even look back at him. His hands were somewhat raised as if he was surrendering, and he was staring at that space on the mattress where Kairi had just fled. Neither of them looked at him, which made it worse. They knew they were in the wrong. Kairi and Axel had both addressed the fact Roxas was supposed to be something important.

Still laughing, Roxas yanked off his hat and slid a set of fingers through his hair. Kairi was quick to get dressed and announce she could walk back to her house, and had Roxas been a lesser person he would've tripped her as she shoved past him. Kairi didn't apologize. She didn't acknowledge him, and there was something brilliantly defining about that moment. He had liked her. He had once seen her as a fun and interesting person who made him smile with her chopped jokes and strange sweetness. Even then Roxas considered her a good person. He wasn't sure why he couldn't hate her, but he would never be able to look at her again. He would've rather abhorred her down to her bone marrow than feel the kind of loss right then. They had been friends. Roxas didn't have very many of those and he hadn't realized the value he put on them until she slammed the front door.

When he was done with his laughing, Roxas reached up and swiped his tears away. "Oh fuck."

Axel had finally lowered his hands, but he still faced the wall. "Roxas…"

"How about you just shut the fuck up?" Roxas' laughter sputtered out again, and those laugh induced tears finally dissolved into complete devastation where they leaked down in salty rivers. Giggling broke into choked up breathes where he had to talk himself out of hyperventilating, but he put his hat back on and gripped the doorframe with his chest heaving. Suddenly, he was gritting his teeth. The rage had his vision distorting and before he could stop himself he was yelling until he thought his vocal cords would shred. "I fucking trusted you!"

There was an enveloping silence that followed. " _Everything_ —there was nothing else to tell. I've told you  _everything_  about myself, and you acted like you cared. That's what you fucking are, Axel Diamond; an actor! Your last name is a fucking mockery of you because you're not perfect! You're the farthest thing from the bullshit you feed everyone! Even those who know what you are!"

Suddenly, Axel turned to give Roxas eye contact and the anger on the other man's face startled Roxas into shutting his mouth. It was Axel's turn. "I never said I was perfect! You and everyone else have this distorted concept of me as a human being, and this is what you get for make believing a pedestal. You fall the fuck off!"

"I've known you're not perfect. I've known you've been playing pretend for a long time and how you set other people up! I thought that was what made us what we were and—"

Axel stood up and easily slid into a pair of jeans. They hung low and he suddenly strode up to Roxas with a mocking tilt of the head and glowering expression. "What the fuck were we, Roxas?"

"I…"

"Because let me tell you something about relationships." He pointed a finger in Roxas' face, and Roxas exhaled to suppress his want to hit Axel in the jaw. "I fucking hate myself, and you—oh, baby,  _you_ —I've never met another person full of so many self-deprecating tendencies. You absolutely fucking hate yourself. So, what were we? Do you think you fucking _loved_ me? Do you think  _I_  loved you? It is utterly  _impossible_  to love someone if you do not love yourself, and Roxas Eames, you cannot fucking stand your own existence. What makes you think you could stand mine in the long run? What makes you think I could stand  _yours_? So don't look at me like I broke your heart because the last time I fucking checked neither of us have one to give. Not even ourselves."

The pause that followed was one of shaking irises that flickered across Axel's face as if he were reading text. Roxas' fingers had unclenched, and it was then he realized he had been lying to himself. Outside there were leaves morphing into waterfalls of sunrise oranges and sunset reds, but the seasons didn't change until Roxas gave Axel one final look and strode down the stairs.

* * *

He went home and shoved his fingers down his throat. He sputtered up pizza rolls, diet Coke, sour skittles and it wasn't until he was stuck on fruitless burps and saliva leaking down his scraped fingers did he pull back from the toilet and flush. There was a mirror above the sink he shaved in front of, and when he saw himself his eyes were bloodshot, but there weren't any broken blood vessels. If there hadn't been anything between them, then why was he tightening his jaw every chance he got to think? Roxas couldn't understand how he had been so wrong about everything. Technically, he had been right in the beginning, but after all the time spent with Axel he had a difficult time believing they had been a sham. Roxas acknowledged his own denial with a frustrated scream against his fisted knuckles. He bit down and kept screaming with his forehead pressed against the wall until he began to punch the drywall with quick repetitive strikes.

Eventually he calmed down and decided to go to bed early. Even though he had to study he couldn't force himself through another page of his disjointed note taking. Had he been able to predict the future and there was a class solely based on paying attention and taking notes, then he would've climbed mountains to get into it in high school. How he had sailed through high school with a GPA that qualified him for Ivy League was beyond him because he was barely passing anything he was taking. There were legitimate distractions, but some days he simply nudged at his stack of books until they fell off his desk and scattered. Afterward, he'd roll over and nap. When he woke up he would step over his mess twenty times before picking them up only to realize he had a quiz for his next class and it was suddenly one in the morning. It kept happening. He wasn't sure why.

The next morning Xion had another appointment with her oncologist, and Roxas had promised he would be there to visit. The sun was shrouded by autumn rain, and he spent a good hour with his face buried beneath a pillow and his eyes focused on his cellphone's glowing screen. He kept scrolling through his unanswered text messages, awaiting more and hoping for some kind of apology from Axel. In his dream world the redhead would apologize, tell him the stress from Xion's cancer was finally getting to him and then they would go see Xion together with intentions of talking it out. She would smile at them and believe they were perfect because when he was with her—when he saw just how happy he made her—those were the times when he knew he would never be closer to perfection. Making Xion grin through her fatigue and endless list of sicknesses genuinely made Roxas content with himself.

Rolling over onto his stomach, Roxas continued fiddling with his phone. Even when his vision blurred from the obnoxious bout of crying he was suddenly fighting he continued attempting to read through messages. Tear drops began dripping onto his phone and abruptly the screen went black. Blinking back anymore of the waterworks, he attempted to turned the phone back out. Roxas went as far as taking out the battery and trying to turn it on again, but the phone wouldn't relent. He had fried the piece of machinery with his tears, and how horribly stupid and embarrassing that was made him slam his face down into the mattress and scream. His insurance wasn't going to cover the damage of teenage boy's angst, and he was going to hear it from his dad when he saw the charge for another phone. The only semblance of a family he had was his cellphone's family data plan.

Defeated, he set the phone aside and decided there were boundaries he needed to be contemplate, but whether or not he got under Axel's skin by being present for Xion suddenly didn't matter to him. The girl had absolutely nothing to do with Axel and his problems, and he wasn't going to be the lesser person who backed out because that non-existent heart in his chest was fragmenting like a chunk of mica. It was why he got dressed, brushed his teeth, took a long look at the man staring back at him in that bathroom mirror and jostled his car keys. There was more to the world than just him and he was going to prove to himself he was at least right about that.

Roxas fleetingly acknowledged an eating Hayner at the breakfast bar with a wave as he strode through the garage door and it was then he realized he'd agreed to skate with Demyx later. There was a sudden satisfaction knowing he and Axel had mutual friends along with Xion because that meant there was no way Axel could easily dispose of Roxas. The only person who had a right to dispose of him was himself, and he' be damned before the redhead melted him into some kind of self-hatred ego trip where Axel could walk away believing he knew life's workings as if he'd live twenty lives.

His bout of contemplation had made him miss Xion's actual treatment. One of the jars of glitter was bright salmon while the other was mint green. He wondered what they'd look like combined, and he decided Xion would probably like the idea of mixing them. She was sort of picky about color combinations, but Roxas thought he'd found a good pair for her. Not only that, but the challenge to meet her creative standard was slowly morphing into a light hearted game for himself.

Staring at the dead screen of his cellphone as he walked toward Xion's room with the bag swaying back and forth, his attention was drawn upward at the sound of that disjointed voice that was Xion's. Never before had he heard her cry, but as if on instinct, he knew it was her. Roxas shoved his phone into his back pocket as he made a beeline for the hospital room. There wasn't time to glance at Axel who was sitting on a chair beside her and rapidly signing. She wasn't looking at his hands because she was too busy staring at her own. With devastated wailing that was full of grief Xion stared at the black clumps of hair on her palms. She had been warned she would probably lose her hair, but as Roxas had learned, just because you knew didn't make it any less painful.

Seeing her shoulders shake forced Roxas to suck in a quick breath, and it was only then he looked at Axel. The eye contact didn't last long enough for Roxas to turn that emotional kindling into the potential flame within himself, and instead of asking about the obvious Roxas sat down on the bed and hurriedly scooped the pieces of hair out of her hands. It was a moment when he wanted to cry because nothing was fair, and she didn't deserve to ever think less of herself. Her self-image was important to her because she was young, and that was normal. It was okay for her to be concerned about her looks. Xion was someone Roxas looked at and knew would grow up into a knockout, and she didn't deserve to hate herself. She didn't deserve to become like her brother or himself. Had he been alone he would've screamed for her. He would've screamed and tried to burn the world down.

Roxas set the hair on her bedside stand and tapped her chin so she would look at him. " _You are beautiful_."

Her eyes were watery and she was shaking. It took a couple tries. " _You're just saying that_."

He had learned faces were important, and it was why he gave her a severe stare. " _I would never lie to you even if it meant hurting your feelings_. _You're beautiful and this is not forever_."

" _What if it is? What if I don't get better_?  _What if I die ugly_?"

" _You will get better_."

Xion stared at him and took a moment to sniff. " _Do you promise_?"

" _No—promise yourself you will fight. Axel and I will fight with you as long as you promise yourself you won't let this defeat you before the battle really begins_."

She touched her hair again, pulled out a couple strands, and Roxas hadn't been aware of Axel's attention to his hands. He had made a point to process everything Roxas had said to her, but Axel's attention wasn't important anymore. What was important right then was making sure Xion understood this wasn't going to be easy and the loss of her hair wasn't going to be the ruin of her. Roxas wouldn't let her believe this was the beginning to some kind of ending. Nothing had been scarier for Roxas than her suddenly acknowledging her mortality.

Finally, she redirected her hands to speak. " _I promise_."

" _Now tell me you're beautiful_."

That made Xion squint at him, but suddenly she smiled. " _Weird_."

Roxas wasn't letting up. " _Do it_."

Reluctantly with a sigh, " _I'm beautiful_."

That satisfied Roxas enough for him to place the bag of things he bought on her lap. Xion had instantly calmed, and they spent the rest of Roxas' visit making feelings jar. Though she wasn't certain at first, Xion approved of the green and salmon colors being mixed together. After seeing it, the combination was suddenly her favorite jar, but after shaking the new bottle and letting the glitter settle a couple times she yawned and Roxas knew that was his cue to tell her he had studying to do. Xion was understanding even though evidently disappointed, but when it came down to it Roxas knew she needed just as much rest as soul lifting visits from her two favorite people. He decided the next time he visited he would bring her another wig.

The entire time he sat with Xion her brother refrained from speaking. If Xion had noticed she'd hid it well because usually he and Axel were decently communicative; flirty, even. Of course, the girl was impossibly observant and that went along with bouts of surprisingly intelligence. Roxas wouldn't have been surprised to find out she had definitely noticed the hushed tension but knew better than to start anything. It worried him. The last thing he wanted was for Xion to be uncomfortable, and Roxas liked to think Axel was on the same page as him. That being said, Roxas had learned it was better off not to assume things.

" _I'll see you in a few days_." Roxas patted the side of Xion's face and she reached out to pat his. For some reason, her mimicking his gesture made him quietly laugh.

" _Next time we'll talk about why you're sad_."

He stared at her for a long time before gripping her hand and giving it a momentary squeeze. " _I'm not sad_.  _I'm really happy right now_.  _You make everyone happy_."

" _Will you be happy when you leave this room_?"

Roxas exhaled from the back of his throat and the sound that followed was a raspy sigh. His smile didn't give up, though. Xion was about to make him cry, but he refused to let that happen in front of her. " _Very happy_."

There was something tremendously painful about lying to her. Before he walked out of the room he gave her a final hug that was a little tighter than usual. For being young she was so much wiser than him at times, and he wished he could stay with her longer to pick her brain. Then was an era where he had to focus on keeping her consistently happy, but at some point he wanted to know how she saw the world. Xion seemed like the person more than capable of telling him where all of the mysteries of life were, and Roxas suspected that just maybe Axel was wrong. Just maybe she could remember everything about her life before him and their parents, and though the thought was heart wrenching, he wouldn't have been surprised. She just knew too much.

Roxas waved goodbye and as he walked down the hallway he realized Axel hadn't said a word to him. He wished he was shocked, and he didn't know what he had been expecting, but Roxas was beginning to realize the only person he could expect anything from was himself.

 


	12. Everlasting Youth

"Just because someone comes on your face doesn't mean they love you or even like you. People get paid to do that, and you can't hold a dude responsible for wanting to get his rocks off when you were in it for the same thing.  _What?_  Did you think you two were together? I've seen him drag people along a lot longer than he did you."

Demyx kicked off and didn't bother to shoot Roxas a look when the whir of wheels over sidewalk breeched their conversation. The autumn sun soaked through Roxas' sweatshirt and he narrowed in on the end of the street. His car was collecting dust in the townhouse's double door garage because it was easier to grab his board and skate to class than find his ever elusive keychain, back out while simultaneously not hitting someone, and find a parking space; the last one being about as conceivable as finishing a Lord of the Rings marathon.

"I didn't say we were together," Roxas murmured before spitting out a piece of stale gum. "But he'd said he thought we were something, so I assumed."

"You have higher odds for a positive outcome jumping into a wood chipper than making assumptions about him. That's the danger of smart people. They can manipulate you into whatever outcome fits them at the time. I've known Axel since he showed up here out of the blue, and there's a reason we're not best friends, you feel me? Don't get me wrong. I like him. Everyone does."

He couldn't hide his annoyance. "If you know he's a shitty person, then why do you like him?"

"Isn't that the funny thing about good looking charismatic assholes? He makes everyone feel like they're his best friend. Smoke with him once and you're higher off his attention than anything else. Like," Demyx paused and smoothly dipped off a curb, "everyone is rooting for him for no reason. You can't explain it. People always think they'll be that character in the novel that changes him for the better."

"Someone could've warned me."

"Well, isn't that way easier said than done?"

Internally, he folded. There wasn't much point in arguing his case or the deceit he was still attempting to balance with continuing to enjoy Demyx's company. Everyone had been waiting for his friendship with Axel to implode with baited breath. Roxas' face pulsed with heat, tingled and his ribs threatened to clamp onto his guts like a Venus flytrap when he overthought his humiliation. The worst part being he still anticipated Axel's presence whenever he went over to the house with Demyx. Any snippet of passing conversation made his nerves ripen to the point of bursting like sun rotted fruit, and he was a slut for the thought of mapping Axel's body out over and over again. He salivated, swallowed down the want he reminded himself wasn't need and refocused.

Roxas had never seen himself as confrontational, but sometimes he surprised himself. Maybe it was the midterms suckling him dry of all the patience he'd been spoon fed. Maybe it was the damage to his dopamine neurons thanks to not waiting long enough in between rolling. Maybe Roxas was somehow becoming even more self-aware. Whatever the reason was for him bucking up and acknowledging Axel Diamond without being curt was an enigma. He attempted to chant the mantra 'kill him with kindness' in hopes of remaining sane, but the last time he checked sending someone chocolates and flowers didn't do much murdering unless laced with cyanide. It was becoming too evident Roxas didn't handle rejection well, and he was even less refined about wanting to get laid when no one else seemed to fit the bill except one person.

"You do realize these coffee beans were harvested via child slave labor."

Axel's words filtered up the stairs as Roxas trudged down them. He wasn't surprised to see Axel leaned back against the countertop with a coffee cup in hand and sipping as if the fact he had spewed was inconsequential. Unlike Roxas, Xigbar wasn't afraid to mention the irony, but he did so while continuing to drink from his own mug. There were a couple things wrong with the scenario Roxas wasn't informed enough to comment on without risking making himself sound like an idiot, but he felt the error in his bones.

"You hypocritical bastard," which wasn't solely what Roxas was thinking, but it was good enough.

"Don't get me started on the corporate stronghold there. They create fair-trade consumerism, but make it to where only the upper class can afford to care about the poor. Spare me your judgmental leers, Xigbar."

Demyx finally spoke up. "If you cared you'd just quit drinking coffee."

"That," and Roxas rolled his eyes because he recognized the tone Axel was wrangling in, "is where they get you. They hook us on caffeine when we're young and socially unaware. Make us think it's something we have to have every morning in order to function or else we're warranted a streamline of incessant bitching about how we didn't get our morning fix. At first we  _pretend_ we need coffee, but then the migraines start, we can't focus enough to read and there you have it; a stunning case of the corporate world abusing the disease Addiction."

Xigbar's chin was propped up on his palm. "The only disease in this room is whatever's making that diarrhea pour from your mouth."

Before Axel could retort Roxas released a bellowing noise that mocked that of an elephant giving birth. He coughed, finished adding creamer to his coffee and turned to face the crowd.

"Sorry, I sneezed."

Axel's look could've raised a body count. "Didn't see you there."

He knew that was a lie, and a stupidly bad one. "No kidding? I could've sworn we made eye contact when I walked right past you two seconds ago."

"No," Axel paused and feigned a thoughtful hum, "no. I don't think so."

"That's pretty incredible. You might want to visit your optometrist. I was right  _there_."

"Maybe you should get your self-centered disposition checked instead?"

" _Mn_ ," he nodded while in mid-sip, "that too or just  _maybe_  you could have your narcissistic know-it-all self-sensationalism reevaluated. It looks a little—what did you call it once? _Infected_?"

Axel laughed the kind of empty laugh that was followed by a quick whistle. Everyone else in the room had grown quiet, and Demyx shuffled in his chair in order to break the silence. Roxas could practically hear those rusted gears in the fellow skater's mind creaking from desperation. This wasn't allowed to happen. People weren't allowed to voice their aggravation. Xigbar stood up with a clattering chair and walked into the living room. The disappearing act lasted ten seconds before he returned to retrieve a stunned Demyx who cast Roxas a concerned look. Roxas ignored it and gratuitously sipped from his chipped mug.

"Feel better," Axel asked while he poured himself more coffee.

"Not in the slightest."

Axel clicked his tongue, sighed wearily and walked toward the living room.

* * *

Roxas had class that morning. He could taste his hangover coming up on the back of his tongue, and when he focused on the way the professor paced back and forth across the projection screen a pendulum inside his head began swinging. Time was all he had, but there were days when he could see the remaining granules of sand streaming to the bottom of the hour glass. Everything was in jars and small containers. His self-loathing was crammed into Ziploc bags and hidden from sight, his rage was glitter drifting to the bottom of a Mason jar, and his misery was bottles stacked along the top of Demyx's kitchen cabinets. Roxas leaned back and tapped his pencil against the desk with an uncomfortable exhale before glancing over his shoulder toward the lecture hall doors.

There was a text book in front of him he hadn't read the night before and barely skimmed in hopes of retaining the pages like photographic memories. Roxas wasn't gifted in eidetic memory, though. Now that he thought about it he wasn't gifted in anything whatsoever. He could roll across the ground on a board without falling off, and though he felt like he was flying that wasn't much when everyone else around him was extraordinary. Everywhere he turned there was another painter with a gallery show, the scholar with the prerequisites for an Ivy League school, some boy who stood up and made the people sing with a voice that stilled the world. All while he was a simpleton with too much money in his bank account and no motivation.

Leaving was an option. No one could tell him to sit back down when the class was a booming two hundred students who were hardly paying attention to begin with. The interpersonal atmosphere was incredibly lacking, and he began eating the inside of his cheek with unattractive sucks. Anxious and uncertain, his phone vibrated on his desk. The clattering of plastic against acrylic was louder than if he had left his ringer on, and he pursed his lips before plucking up the phone and scanning his received text messages. It was Demyx with a proposition.

Even after that morning's exposition of embarrassing bitchiness, Roxas couldn't turn down Demyx's invitation to go out to Axel's property and drink around a camp fire. It was all they ever did when the collective four bongs at Axel's house lost their cosmic glimmer, but it was better than watching Hayner express his thirsty desire to be accepted by pre-law delinquents in the expense of his dignity. Roxas was already a chronically bad student, so he couldn't imagine he'd be bringing in more harm by adding another day to his absentmindedness. Absentmindedness was putting it nicely considering he was looking at the kind of GPA capable of getting him disinherited, but he had long ago accepted he wasn't a shining beacon in the intellectual union.

There was another reason, though. He wasn't daft enough to convince himself he didn't go to savor what little interaction he could leech from Axel. It was a cyclic form of building himself up and gutting out on the pine shavings just so he could clean himself up and rinse and repeat. Roxas identified the obsessive nature on his part mainly because it was blatant. No matter how he attempted to rationalize his connection to Axel, there was nothing there but the bare faced fact he had grown too invested in someone who'd given up on him half-way through. Unfair as it was in his mind, he was still willing to whip himself like a sinner before an altar. It was mortifying and the kind of self-implemented punishment he got off on the way he had with purging.

He arrived with his overnight bag in the passenger seat and no expectations for a genuinely good time, but Demyx fighting with the fire and eventually kicking a log five feet away from him had Roxas laughing. Tossing his keys and catching them as he approached his mullet-stricken friend, Roxas kneeled down and began to properly build the teepee formation. Even after this, though, Roxas and Demyx soon found they weren't men of nature but more of the pizza rolls and diet Mountain Dew in front of the flat screen type. Their genre was a testament to Mother Nature's natural selection, and they would've been the first to die in any survival situation.

"I'm returning this lighter fluid," Demyx announced as he tossed the white bottle into the air and punted it as far into the field as he could.

Roxas paused and watched as it landed with a distinct thud. "Now you're not."

"Open your mouth again, Roxas…"

"Pray tell. What exactly do you want to do to my mouth?"  
A pair of cars speeding through the woods could be heard followed by the kind of hollering that had Demyx's threat drift off into space. Forgetting exactly what he'd wanted to do to Roxas' mouth, the man grumbled something under his breath about diamonds making fun of him for not being able to ignite a simple bonfire, and it took Roxas three tries to understand what he'd meant by that. After Axel's luster had been rolled through the hog farm Roxas wasn't exactly keen on associating him with a precious stone meant to be set and worn.

Axel's KIA followed by Xigbar's conspicuous Lincoln swerved up beside Roxas' car at breakneck speed. Blinking, Roxas saw his insurance company's logo flash before his eyes, but his attention was diverted. Through the windshield of the KIA sat an individual's silhouette he couldn't recognize. There was something about that sudden crassness in his 'groups' routine that had Roxas rolling his shoulders and glancing at the dead fire pit. He'd grown to know everyone well enough to understand their methodologies—Axel not really included in that one. Truthfully, Roxas wasn't bent on learning another face, name or basic identity right then. But he couldn't say anything. Not when he perpetually found himself in debt to the tolerance his new friends laid out for him. Axel had been there first, and though the seniority of friendship seemed petty and something that should've been discontinued in high school it still stood solid.

The stranger ended up being the kind of company Roxas couldn't have imagined Axel keeping. When he stepped out of the car he held the same height and basic posture as Axel, but his flinty eyes with their sunshine behind ice colorization and thin line lips were everything but warm. He dispersed disinterest with every step he took and when the blue haired man's eyes locked onto him Roxas rolled his jaw and glanced back to Demyx with an uncertain stare. He was gone, though. Demyx was jogging off to retrieve the thrown bottle of lighter fluid because at this point it really was his only hope at not suffering a pride-jarring laugh from Axel.

Dragging his fingers along his sideburns, Axel knelt down beside Roxas and chuckled as he rearranged the firewood only to begin digging through the grocery bag for another lighter and strip of cardboard from their beer box collection. He didn't say anything, and the back of his throat swelled as if he needed an EpiPen slammed into his thigh because he recognized ridiculousness when it was breathing along the side of his face. Warm and more a nuisance than anything else, Roxas brushed his fingers through his hair and stood upright to find Demyx still looking through the tall amber grass. Roxas had seen exactly where the bottled had landed. Demyx wasn't even close.

"Who the hell is that?" Roxas asked as he feigned looking for the bottle.

Demyx glanced over his shoulder and scoffed, "That would be Saïx. Like him?"

"He hasn't said a word yet. I don't know…"

"Well, you won't like him. Like, trust me on that one."

Raising his palms toward the sky for a short moment, Roxas finally stepped toward the bottle and reached down for it. "Why's that?"

"As much as you two could probably bond over how to gain brooding experience points for your guilds of misery he's the reason Kairi and Axel dropped their shit the first time. In short, Axel's the lock and Saïx is the key both figuratively and literally." He stopped at 'literally' to flick his tongue over his top lip as if he'd tasted something rotten. "You want competition, then you've just found your gladiator, and he's wearing some nice designer chainmail."

"They're together too?"  _God, what kind of slut…?_

He took the bottle from Roxas' hands and grabbed his shoulder. "More together than you two ever were…"

Roxas stood there and gazed toward the woodlands ahead of him as Demyx let go of his shoulder and proceeded to scream at Axel for managing to get the fire going. Certain he should've been more upset then he was, he rolled his lips together and turned to follow Demyx. Fixing his snapback in the process, Roxas headed straight for the cooler and kept his expression relatively neutral. He was defeated before he could even reassert himself in the situation. It was why he parked himself between Xigbar and Demyx and had no intentions of leaving their barriers until he was either too lit to care or ready to pass out in the front seat of his car.

Meeting Saïx was the facilitator for Roxas' finalized outlook on Axel. They drank beer together for six straight hours but by the end Roxas didn't learn anything about the man Axel hadn't alluded to through a hugely one sided conversation. He spoke calmly, but there was an undercurrent sweetness to it that made the hairs on the back of Roxas' neck lift, and it was like gaining a sudden tick. This wasn't the same person he'd spent half a year adjusting to as quickly as his mind would allow him. Axel's fingers gripped at Saïx's bicep when they spoke, he was the first one to not only offer Saïx another beer but retrieve it for him and when they spoke one-on-one Axel kept his hand lightly locked on Saïx's sleeve. The most distinctive part was how Saïx didn't touch Axel nor bother to return any of the intimate gestures to the point it hurt to watch, and he wished Demyx had explained things better because something was bristling. He just couldn't pin point exactly what was and wasn't there.

After a constructive lesson on how to properly roast a hotdog from Xigbar, Roxas found himself spending the night alone in his car beside Axel's. For the sake of stretching out there hadn't been any vehicle sleepovers except for Saïx and Axel, which was understandable at the time. With his seat reclined back as far as it would allow, Roxas stared up at the ceiling and counted the reasons he should've stayed home that night and studied for once. He wasn't a remarkable student, but the time he wasted digging himself into the everlasting hole that guaranteed him failure wasn't fun anymore, so there was no longer a rational reason for him to be near flunking before his first set of Finals had started. For example, even though there were two cars worth of walls between him and the rekindled couple Roxas could hear Axel's groaning. It was clearly different from what Roxas was accustomed to when he had once upon a time been the guiding light of Axel's bed, and he wasn't sure how he felt about the distressed state of Axel's cries.

Every desperate groan from Axel was uniquely pitched near the end, and through his peripheral vision he could see the ever so slight bounce of a car that implied too many things at one time. Roxas did his best to remain as blank as his mind would allow, but there was the chest shredding reality beside him. He swallowed down what little saliva had collected to moisten his drying throat, but when he exhaled his breathing was shallow, shaky and he wished it was him getting rode through Axel's cheap backseat with the cigarette burns and Coca-Cola stains Axel had once painstakingly prayed would never deface his low grade vehicle. Roxas squeezed his eyes shut and attempted to think loudly. Had he known this would happen then he would've risked running his battery down by keeping his radio on through the night, but it would be too conspicuous to turn it on then. He could've kicked his steering wheel because the reality was Axel wanted to make a point. This had to be what was happening because someone so intelligent could never be as excruciatingly thoughtless as Axel was being right then.

Axel Diamond was excellent at screaming Saïx's name.

The second he contemplated jerking off to Axel and Saïx was when he finally summoned up the nerve to open his car door and take a walk because couldn't do that to himself. Wrapping his fingers around the handle, he inhaled sharply before pushing open the door and just like that his car's interior light lit up. With attention drawn to himself and a sudden quieting of noises that would've been blaringly loud had he been discrete about his exit, Roxas picked up a beer can from beside the bonfire that was still half full. He examined the aluminum with his tongue picking at the in between of his molars and contemplated his maturity. Deciding he was definitely an adult he then proceeded to chuck the can at Axel's windshield as hard as he physically could and wished there had been a shatter instead of a loud thunk. Breathing hard, Roxas grabbed another can and threw it followed by two more before locking his car using his remote. His shoulders were trembling when he headed for the woods.

Unable to still his hands, Roxas stepped through the autumn musky forest. Twigs and leaves crunched beneath his shoes, and he was glad he'd yanked on another layer because the air had turned surprisingly frigid over the past week. It was uncharacteristically cold for the area, but he was okay with the fog that trailed from his mouth in tired wisps. A chill momentarily rang through all four of his limbs, but he didn't stop to return to the warmth of his car. Facing angered Saïx and Axel was not something he was prepared to deal with in that moment of moments. He needed to regroup anyway and figure out what exactly had pissed him off enough to snap. There was supposedly a root to every problem, and Roxas too tired to identify it as anything but his entire life.

His named was being yelled, and he couldn't tell if it was Axel or Demyx, but the graveness implied the first of the two. For a short moment he reflected on the first night he had gone to the very woods with Olette, and he suddenly wondered if Xion was doing okay. He couldn't imagine spending so much of his life as an inpatient especially when he was wandering through the formlessness that was nature. He wanted to know the last time she'd been allowed to walk alone. Had she ever been allowed? She was young and Axel had probably gone with her wherever she went if she wasn't with her parents. Even before the cancer Axel had been scared for her, and he hoped there would be a day when Xion could be her own person without the doctor telling her what to do or her older brother breathing along the back of her neck. She deserved that at the absolute least.

Unlike Roxas, Axel knew the woods. The night sky was lighting the beaten path anyway, and the second Axel had decided to finally investigate the situation Roxas hadn't had a prayer of being alone unless he wanted to wander into the wooded thickets and potentially die. Dying was an exhausting notion, so he continued even though Axel's footsteps grew closer by the second. He was running, and had it not been ridiculous to even consider then Roxas would've ran too just to attempt to get away. Then again, what did he know about not being ridiculous? He'd just chucked a six pack at Axel's car in the name of sullen rage he couldn't contain anymore.

When he was finally close enough Roxas swiveled around and continued walked backwards. " _Come on_! Can't I have five seconds alone? Don't you have a dick to gag on or something, you fucking whore!"

Axel raised both of his hands and looked away with a deep intake of breath. "You're mad so I'm going to let that one go for now, but call me a  _whore_ again and I'll knee your teeth down your throat."

Roxas shoved the end of his sleeve into his mouth and screamed against the fabric until he partially choked. When he was done he turned right back around and strode off. He was about to fall into that state of manic laughing again because he was tired. He wanted stability. He wanted nothing more than a rock, and he knew he couldn't turn a person into that, but someone to support him along the way would've been nice. Instead, he'd invested his potential relief into the figurehead of absolute self-destruction and now he couldn't pull his cards out without being punished like a Martha Stewart stock market rerun. Doing something right by himself was seemingly impossible without the risk of projecting even more misery onto himself when it was all said and done. He couldn't escape it. There was no way to win in his situation.

"Will you listen to me?" Axel wasn't going to give up that easily.  
"You want to talk  _now_? After every single thing—"

"I've done one thing wrong by you," but Axel checked himself. "Two now, but I haven't done a lot."

"You're so self-righteous." He stopped again, though. When he turned around this time he'd shoved his hands into his hoodie's front pouch to hide the shaking. "Might as well tell me what you have to say. I'm never talking to you again after this. It might have sucked, but at least dealing with Hayner, Olette and Pence was simple. It wasn't this convoluted excuse for a friendship. At least I knew what I had then. I knew what to expect."

The redhead's demeanor shifted downward. "Don't say that when you were puking into Ziploc bags only a few months ago. You can't put me beneath them…"

"Well, you know—the difference between them and you is they never set me up to believe they had any intentions beyond what they showed. They've never promised anything. You have…"

"What'd I promise, Roxas." His authority over the situation was nonexistent. "Tell me what I said to you."

Roxas looked through him for a moment only to glance down at the ground and scratch at his temple. "You know—I'm not very good at being friends with someone. I don't think I ever knew what it was like to wholly enjoy someone's company so much I could sit in silence with them without it being uncomfortable. Wasn't that a line from Pulp Fiction or something? You know they're special when you can do that? Life isn't a movie.  _I know_. I get that, but you could've told me things weren't progressing. You could've spared me the birth of another relationship like what I have with Hayner. I told you about that. You told me how wrong it was, and how that's not even…" Roxas couldn't say the word  _consensual_ , but he continued. "And we ended up doing the same thing, anyway. In the end, you handled me like I was a piece of meat when I would've stopped the world for you because I was so thankful I finally had someone. I've never had that before."

"Roxas, come on. It wasn't like you and Hayner…"

The fact that he wanted to tear up disgusted him right then. "Axel, you didn't have to love me. I wouldn't have cared after a while. The infatuation would've stopped. People deal with that shit all the time and get over it. But you just…"

Axel waited. "Are you going to finish that thought?"  
"…really kind of fucking suck."

" _Eloquent_ , really. Can I talk now?"

He didn't want to hear it, but there wasn't much of a choice. "If you need to."

"You are a horrible liar." Axel raised his hand to stop Roxas from interrupting. Instead, he paused and dragged his gaze along the small figure of a boy who hardly looked as he had when they'd met a year ago. "This wouldn't have ended on the note of you getting over your infatuation. Just like how I would've never gotten over mine for you. Do you know how fucking hard it is to wake up beside someone and just know they're going to be gone? As if it's rooted in my genetic makeup to understand Roxas Eames is not a permanent fixture, and if I overdevelop myself within him I'm looking at about a year of recovery? My sister is dying. We both know she's dying, and I'm going to hold on until she can't, but why would I want to share that with someone who's bound to disappear? I'm not going to let you runaway with the memories of her and what I've gone through."

The anger and torment was slipping from his voice. "On what grounds do you have to be so convinced I'm going to one day disappear?"

"Have you ever heard yourself talk?" Axel's words were thick, and it was then Roxas had to wonder if it wasn't as bright out as he thought because for such a straight face it sounded as if he was about to cry. But Axel took a moment to choke out a quick laugh. "And to think I thought I was a flake."

There was a moment when the wind picked up in order to fill the pregnant pause between them. He wanted to know how someone who he'd only just met could know him so well. Roxas always considered running away, but he never had the nerve. He'd locked in on the belief that he had a place, but maybe Axel knew something about himself he didn't. God knew he'd caught onto things about Roxas that even Roxas himself had barely been able to acknowledge. What if Axel knew that someday Roxas would summon the nerve to finally leave the trials and tribulations that Uptown and Downtown had created both men? Roxas just didn't understand why Axel wouldn't leave too. If the worst case scenario happened, and he had nothing left to stay for, then why would it just be him?

"If you didn't think I'd leave, then where would we be right now?"

Axel finally took the twenty steps forward that'd been separating them. Though he had no room to be, he was smiling with his hands shoved into the pockets of his dark wash fitted jeans. "You'd be Roxas Diamond."

"You're so full of shit."

"Pretty much, yeah." Flat out grinning, Axel exhaled some and shivered. "But—I guess I'd be in love with you. Well, in those beginning stages where the chemicals are churning and I spend about ninety percent of my life letting my serotonin and oxytocin speak for me, which has been happening since the day we met on the bridge. I basically took one look at you and it was an expulsion of dopamine, I swear."

Pausing, Roxas chewed on that and cut him a narrowed look. "Did you just say?"

_He thinks it was love at first sight. What a piece of work, seriously._

"Now, I didn't say anything to the effect of what you're thinking."

Not pushing him off when Axel's fingers drifted to the side of his face. He planned on standing his ground. "Yeah, then what are you saying?"

Axel momentarily licked his top lip before leaning in close enough to make Roxas' pulse quicken. "Do you really want to know?"

Nodding, Roxas finally reached up to lazily drape his arms over the man's shoulders, and they were too close for someone who had his momentary boyfriend a hop skip down the path. "Really, I promise."

"I'm saying, when I first saw you, I knew you were the finest piece of ass I'd ever laid eyes on."

Dropping his content expression, Roxas suddenly shoved off the cackling Axel and began walking. "I'm going back to my car."

"Don't be like that, Roxas! I was  _joking_!"

" _Ah_ —hilarious.  _So_  funny—I can't  _even_!"

Axel hadn't bothered to start walking after him. "Are you actually going back to your car?"

"Time to face your pissed off boyfriend and cuddle down with my eventual bruises in the warmth of my car!"

There was a short cough. "Yeah, about that…"

* * *

The fact that Saïx had not only taken a log and proceeded to shatter Roxas' windshield but also drive off in the KIA with an apparently triumphant 'fuck yourself' was not exactly how Roxas had imagined regaining balanced footing with Axel. While Axel plucked Roxas' cellphone from his back pocket and called a late night tow truck, the blond stood in front of his car with a clenched jaw and the kind of organic distress unlike what he'd been experiencing only a handful of seconds beforehand. Someone had slaughtered the child he'd originally thought he didn't care that much for, but as he looked upon his damaged Mercedes it was evident his heart was broken.

"I can't believe this." He turned to Axel. "What the  _hell_?"

"What're you looking at  _me_  for? You're the one who threw the beer and blue balled us."

Roxas parted his lips. "Don't talk to me for a really long time."

He was flipping through Roxas' pictures. "Don't condemn me for fancying head cases. It's not a lifestyle choice…"

"I'm pretty sure that kind of thing  _is_." He realized Axel was still fixated on his phone. "Are you done with that yet?"

His long fingers were rapidly sliding along the touchscreen. "No."

"What are you even doing?"

"When you caught me with Kairi this first thing I did was respectfully delete every nude you sent my way along with every video I shot of you, every picture you let me take and I even deleted my recycling bin. It was a bad time for me. I'm sure the stress swindled me out of two years of life."

" _Now_  is a really bad time and you're avoiding the question."

"No. I'm not." He raised Roxas' phone to show the blond a picture of himself that involved three fingers and too honest of an angle. "I'm resending myself all of your nudes. See this one? It's my favorite…"

Roxas swiped his phone back and shoved Axel for the second time that night. "Go wake up Demyx. You're sober enough to drive, and I want to sleep in a bed after this."

When the tow truck arrived the sun was threatening to peek over the horizon, and a soft fog had rolled in over the cascading hills. Axel had yanked open Roxas' door and crawled over glass to retrieve his personal belongings that mostly ended up being clothing, and when they were finally on the road in Demyx's rusting yellow truck Roxas found himself leaned over against Axel with his bleary vision taking in the highway along with the bumper of his damaged car. Demyx hadn't seemed too surprised about the damage while Xigbar spent two straight minutes laughing until his smoker's lungs had threatened to collapse on themselves.

Laughter in spite of his misery was the last thing Roxas had wanted to hear at the time.

The soft trilling of music along with fall's morning air whirled about the truck and dawn had blanketed the sky in a dusty pink when Axel reached over and curled his fingers into a set of Roxas'. Waves of fatigue illuminated the universe for Roxas, and he was hyperaware of Axel's olive skin against his own. A sense of apprehension suckered him into breathing in gulps of crisp air, and suddenly he was catapulted into a refreshed sense of self. Not because Axel was feeding him positive attention but because sometimes—even in the worst of times—the world was merciful enough to cleanse a person with the right kind of oxygen and speckles of tired sunshine. For the first time in a long while he wanted to tell himself he'd be okay.

"Let's get food," Demyx suggested.

To the driver's dismay, Axel wordlessly leaned over and caught Roxas' mouth with his own and seamlessly their lips meshed without the rotting obligation of over pronounced neediness. Stale beer and the lingering traces of Axel's cloves were exchanged, but Roxas wasn't going to complain. The two men were momentarily at ease and for once it was Demyx's turn to hate his life.

 


	13. Tree House Hideaway

The nape of his neck rested on the wooden arm of a hospital chair as he tilted his head back to embrace vertigo. With legs falling over the opposite side and uncomfortably dangling above Pepto-Bismol checkerboard tiles Roxas concentrated on the way Axel and Xion's laughter intermingled. Low chuckles and wind chime giggles tossed and turned like torrent waves. If he sipped them rapidly he would definitely choke on his trachea, which was why he closed his eyes and held his breath. He did this when he passed cemeteries, when he devoured the ground offerings from the elephant-shaped pipe Axel had bought him, when he busted the bridge of his nose against porcelain toilets and free bled onto a floor. Until his ears turned into ringing belfries and his heart beat thickened Roxas depleted oxygen, and some nights when he was too tired, Axel did it for him.

An enunciation of his name broke the spell, and Roxas' eyes popped open with an accompanying inhale. Resurfacing, his face turned toward the man who was leaned back in his own chair. Legs parted, elbows settled on the arms and his torso was slanted with a curious tilt of the head; Axel's throne held dominion over the entire visit in ways Roxas hardly registered anymore. He was the king with a crown that anyone who knew him could no longer see, but those far away enough to remain enchanted spotted immediately. It was the most content the redhead had seemed in a month, and Xion was thinner but ethereally bright with hands fluttering like finches.

" _Axel said we're going to the beach soon."_

Roxas readjusted himself into an upright position with a crack of the spine. When he shared eye contact with Axel he made it clear he was uncertain. If Xion left anytime soon, then that had to mean she was getting better. Roxas solely knew the necessary information about chemotherapy, but whatever it was doing didn't seem to be helping. She was as weak as ever, and her fragile state was why the doctor kept her hospitalized. Roxas had seen cancer patients live their lives as fully as they could manage, but Xion was the glass trinket on his grandmother's shelf all while being the box of nails he regularly wished he could be. He didn't understand.

The wispy bones that held her waterlogged skin and wood-rotted muscles created an entity of slopes. Her shoulders curved downward and ponds pooled in the creases of her elbows, and when she stretched out her forearms rapids gushed along her lifelines. Her structure was held together by a promise that crashed in the hollows of Roxas' ears until he recalled the purple shirt Axel had worn the day they met. The older man had stood above the same frothy rapids and stared fearlessly beneath the iron bridge. Roxas sought out the correlation between the two, and he told himself death could never be more than a party for two. As long as they were there, then they could continue to interrupt Xion's potential decline.

He reluctantly had to ask. " _Are you sure you'd feel up to it_?"

Xion's hands took off and Roxas stared long and hard, but her tightly scrunched expression distracted him from paying attention to her fingers. He disappointed himself when he turned to Axel for assistance whose laughter had started out as staccato chuckles and took a rapid crescendo down the highway of Roxas' humiliation. To say he was beleaguered and only somewhat offended was a nicety considering his cheeks were aflame.

"Did she just ask me about  _bath soaps_?"

"Hold on," Axel demanded while he calmed down, but he took one look at his sister and began grinning in a way that left Roxas ready to vacuum his face clean off. "In the words of precious sister Xion, 'you're now high on the list of things that disappoint me, between lukewarm bathwater and soaps that look like candies.'"

He tilted his head in the direction of Xion's sly smile with a simple, " _Really_?"

" _You know I can go! Mom said I could!"_ She turned to Axel with a sharp stare that dared him to challenge her authority over their plans.

Axel looked back and raised his hands in surrender and said. "I know."

She read his lips. " _Good._ "

* * *

What had started out as pulling teeth had morphed into possibly the most therapeutic pastime Roxas had.

"What it is, bitch?!"

Taking a running leap over a hollowed cylinder, Roxas whipped his gun around on its cord and proceeded to whack Xigbar on the small of his back before snatching the ricocheting barrel from mid-air. He sprinted up a carpeted incline that led to the laser tag arena's second floor and screaming echoed around him as he blindly took off through a dry ice haze. Laughter choked him when Xigbar's Doc Martens bounded along his path and sweat crept down his neck in rivulets. He swiped and flicked the perspiration with his fingertips while turning a corner.

"Been smoking a little too much of that chronic, Purple Fox!"

Maybe a few months ago Xigbar would've been able to catch him, but all the recent skating to class and hopping fences with Demyx had built up Roxas' stamina. Few could keep up with his light footwork when he had a penchant for pushing his bones to their breaking point. He wasn't afraid to throw himself over the railing and break his fall with his face if it meant managing to keep his hits minimal, and the only person who could ruthlessly chase him down was Axel. Strategically, they played on the same team.

Their uniforms matched, but Roxas had threatened to filibuster to change the team's shirt color. This had ended in blood, sex and tears but mostly sex. The entire time Roxas had attempted to lecture Axel about the importance of not looking hideous both of his thighs were pushed back and his palms firmly pressed against the plywood headboard. Axel's hard-on stayed alert in the name of pride and ruthless determination alone, but the entire time he half-listened with pursed lips and an unimpressed stare at the sheets beside the blond's head. Roxas wasn't dithered by Axel's driving thrusts, which he postulated were Morse code for  _shut up_. In short, Axel was more stubborn than Roxas had given him credit for, and it was a battle lost at sea.

It had left Roxas in a less than approachable state, but that didn't change how painted across Axel's chest was his hawk and underneath his armor was green. Roxas had graduated from Flaxen Turtle to Flaxen Hare the second he manned down Marluxia and screamed in the man's face until spittle sprayed and his blood pressure spiked. High off his victory, he had trotted out his glee like a horse that'd finagled the Kentucky Derby, but not before screaming in triumph, removing his gear and throwing it at Marluxia who was fortunately amused by Roxas' gallivanting. Until then, it had been widely accepted Roxas didn't possess an inkling of a personality.

Flaxen Hare was still running from Xigbar when he spotted a panting Axel with his chest pressed against a triangular-shaped boulder. Booted feet turned around to begin jogging backwards and the blond flashed Xigbar a smile of brass before raising his gun and closing a single eye. He was mouthing along to the words of the blaring sound system and the generic pop was catchy enough to dictate the pacing of his steps.

"Both eyes open!" Demyx appeared behind Xigbar like an apparition, licked his thumb and stuck it in the scarred man's ear. "Didn't you learn  _anything_  from Pocahontas?"

In the distance Marluxia mournfully screamed a word that vaguely sounded like 'Kocoum.'

Roxas seized the opportunity to begin rapidly pulling the trigger as Xigbar threw a punch at Demyx. Before fist could make contact with face Xigbar's vest lit up and Roxas turned around to sprint for every unborn son he was certain he wouldn't plan. Lungs burned when he released a sharp laugh and he shook his head to whip the sweat on Axel who then was the victim of a hard smack to the dead center of his ass. Axel reached for Roxas' wrist, tugged him back and caught the side of the boy's head with the entirety of his spidery hand. Roxas was smug as Axel firmly pressed his forehead against his own only to let him go.

Running from the redhead down the raised track that overlooked the first story of the arena gave him déjà vu. His fingers were slippery as they held onto the gun and he didn't glance back to see if Xigbar had managed to choke Demyx or if Peregrine Falcon had been terminated by Purple Fox. His blurred vision made the world whip past him in the shapes of human beings throwing their bodies past him like shadows. The room was nighttime in a bedroom by a road and headlights created the illusion of vivid movement on every seeable surface.

For a moment his chest swelled and his dimples seared. Loss had abandoned his stomach and instead enjoyment bubbled from the center of his chest and lifted toward his throat. Had he been given the right incentive then he would've purged the final negativity even blood work could've picked up. There seemed to be so little when only that morning he had stared out his bedroom window overlooking his Harvard-inspired campus. It wasn't Ivy League so they planted ivy instead, and he had wondered what would happen if he drove into one of the rusty bricked walls that peppered the grounds. If only he could find the hidden on and off switch.

* * *

When Roxas watched Saïx fleetingly kiss Axel goodbye in the center of the living room he steeped in the knowledge that once Saïx's car rolled off the yard Axel would scoop him up. An early winter made itself known in October rain and the droplets became angry pellets of ice assaulting siding. Dimness cast over the interior of the house and Roxas' skin became plucked chicken when a gust of wind licked his nose. Axel kept the front door open long enough to watch Saïx leave the premises, and he wondered if he had been half as careful with Kairi. He must have because Roxas had never caught on, but he wasn't about to deny he wasn't the most observant.

"You know those ants with wings?" Roxas asked as Axel continued to gaze outside, arms folded over his chest, a single leg brought back that was meant to bear the burden of his weight.

His words were hollow. "What about them?"

"What  _are_  they?"

Axel laughed but it came out like a sneeze. "What kind of question is _that_?"

The blond repositioned his beanie and raised his palms as if surrendering his curiosity, but Axel didn't miss an opportunity to strut his intellect. Roxas had accepted his own theory that the only way the man could know so much trivial bullshit was by dedicating himself to long hours reading volumes of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. What he knew couldn't have possibly derived from education because the last time he'd checked someone majoring in philosophy without a decided minor didn't cross paths with entomology.

"They're the missionaries of established ant colonies." There was no vaunting behind the explanation. "When they leave the nest their objective is to begin another colony, but they usually die first."

"There's a metaphor somewhere in there."

"I'm thinking it has something to do with the Biology major not knowing anything about the world beyond a bag of Doritos and Pepsi." Axel shut the door and with a soft click and turned the padlock. "Did you want to do anything other than hangout today?"

Roxas waited for him to turn to begin signing. " _Will you talk to me today_?"

His footsteps hop skipped mountains as he strode toward the kitchen. " _Maybe_."

"Being elusive loses its luster after a while," Roxas informed him as he followed. "Are you ever going to tell me what's going on with your relationship? Dicking sucking or not we're—uh, I think you said best friends?"

When Roxas asked him why he wouldn't let go of Saïx he dismissively waved his hand and tossed Roxas a bottle of water. He caught it and thought about throwing the 86% recycled plastic piece like the beer cans but instead of needing detail work Axel would need a plastic surgeon. Sticking around for the sake of his own beatings was belittling and he fantasized about kicking up the table when every ache he was dealt ended up sacked in the name of Axel's superior problems. He couldn't compete with a man whose sister was one seasonal cold from the pyre and every knife that carved the meat off his ribs was a paper cut. Because he wasn't dying meant he wasn't dying and with every bank statement, every hundred dollar lunch with Olette, every cup of overpriced coffee he found himself growing less and less significant to his own problems.

How someone could be lovely while dragging out corpses in Roxas' trenches wasn't fair, and Axel was right about them never being able to love one another. What they had couldn't be foundation for anything promising, and when they napped beside each other on the couch he thought about running away. The driving force between them was implemented by Axel and some days he couldn't tell if the invitational phone calls were Axel wanting them to hangout or a ploy to eradicate whatever Roxas was attempting to salvage.

Really, all they did was sit around and shoot the shit. When the moon was high they studied silently in each other's company and Axel occasionally snorted at his textbook before tugging Roxas onto his lap to explain why exactly the book wasn't objective. When he requested Axel peer review his papers Roxas made the gesture of slitting his throat and leaned over as if bleeding out the same ink the redhead loved to use on his essays. Studying turned into cooking Easy Mac and discussing the importance of a balanced diet in a better economy, cooking turned into the contemplation of a Quentin Tarantino movie, contemplation turned into Roxas' weekly tangent and the tangent turned into him asking  _why_.

These 'whys' never questioned the obvious. They were generic inquiries about life Axel could always answer as if God filtered knowledge through his molars, but on the back of Roxas' tongue sat the single question he couldn't escape no matter how petty it was. Why wasn't he good enough? How was he a lesser being when Saïx could hardly manage a text message that didn't end in Axel walking on Christmas ornaments? Roxas and Axel were equally exasperated for completely different reasons, and some days he wanted to snip the red string between them.

The neighborhood Axel lived in was unofficially owned by the universities' populace. What had once aspired to be American apple pie with cul-de-sacs, lumber playgrounds, and block parties had morphed into a village of streaking adolescents, curb grinders and dismantled cookouts with unbalanced beer to food ratio. There was community, though. Roxas embraced the way students running to class didn't hesitate to be an extra ten minutes late in the name of saying a neighborly good morning to whoever they passed. The habit of greeting anyone he encountered was contagious and before long Roxas had grown acquainted with the inhibitors of the surrounding birdhouses, but there was on in particular he had managed to swindle into familiarity.

Across the street in a two bedroom house with granny smith green shutters lived a blonde who sported an array of yoga pants, fitted tank tops, thick headbands that pushed back unruly bangs and pairs of Nikes for everyday of the month. Roxas' first encounter with this particular woman hadn't included a formal introduction. On a sweltering summer day that made staying indoors a death sentence Axel and Roxas had ventured away from the house's mediocre air conditioning and bottom shelf fans in exchange for a hopeful breeze. While Roxas rolled back and forth in front of Axel on his skateboard the redhead remained seated on the curb with a clove in his left hand and one of Kairi's forgotten cranberry wine coolers in his right. Their shared conversation was lazy observations of Demyx's bathroom routine that had transpired into a problem involving a black streak of mold in the toilet. Though the conversation was illuminating Roxas didn't mind the unceremonious squealing of tires that tore a rift in their discerning of surface cleaners.

Axel perked like a deer after a gunshot when the cruelly parked Hyundai's driver's side door flew open. His forgotten clove crackled to ash and fell onto his denim concealed thigh and the glass bottle hit the asphalt with a crunching clink. Like a nervous tick Axel's hand swept through his hair and Roxas wasn't sure what was going on, but the static in the air forced the hairs on his arms to stand at attention. A thin leg attached to an electric yellow running shoe planted itself on the opposite driveway's gravel and in a single sweep the petite girl graced the neighborhood with a raw grin and straight-lined posture. Axel scowled and Roxas dumbly stared as she waggled her fingers at the both of them before popping her trunk. Soon enough she began rustling through the back of her car and a flash of neon pink created a homicidal clash with her lemon-inspired tank top.

Embedded in Roxas' lack of manners was the need to stare at her rounded ass that was two bowling balls pressed together with the artistic integrity of Salvador Dali. This was why he didn't immediately notice the flamingo lawn ornament in her hands or the mocking glance over her shoulder directed at Axel. Whether or not he had seen this forward acknowledgement wouldn't have aided in Roxas understanding exactly why Axel's shoulders tensed, mouth parted in disbelief and fingers death gripped his kneecaps until his knuckles drained. The blond's mouth opened in surprise when she stalked across her yard until she was dead center, and as if inserting a sword into the Pedestal of Time, planted the ornament into her yard with a triumphant pop of her hip.

"That bitch." Axel didn't move until she self-righteously jogged up her front steps and into her house. The front door hadn't completely closed when he sprung to his feet. "I'm going to Lowes."

"That's a flamingo."

"Observational as always, Roxas Eames. Are you coming with me?"

"I'm not sure I want to be there for whatever impending psychological break you're nursing."

Axel flashed the kind of smile that made Roxas' abdominals clench. "You've got to learn to be a little more give and not so much take."

Within the span of time it took Axel to gain the abilities of both a NASCAR driver and gold metal Olympic athlete Roxas ventured inside to retrieve a Coke from the refrigerator, meticulously make a sandwich, take a leak while aiming determinedly at the black line of mold streaking the farthest wall of the toilet and step back outside with a predicted thirty minutes of waiting time. The error in his prediction came when he spotted the hellfire eyesore placed dead center in Axel's yard. In that fifteen minutes of time Axel had drove to Lowes, sought out a lawn ornament, purchased the lawn ornament and somehow made it back faster than most people could shit. The blonde had given Axel a flamingo and in turn he had raised her with an eight pointer buck sporting cartoon eyes and a hollow jubilant stare seemingly purchased from the Disney World's It's a Small World ride.

Axel was back on the curb as if nothing had happened, and Roxas messily split his sandwich in half before handing it off to the redhead who was relatively calm. "Her name's Larxene."

"I didn't put mayonnaise on it."

"Thanks, kiddo."

If Axel had a tumor he would've named it Larxene.

Unfortunately for Axel, Roxas didn't mind her. She was biting, which was putting it nicely what with her having once rolled a half-full liter of orange soda in front of Roxas' skateboard for no reason whatsoever. The meetings between Roxas and Larxene had begun the same way most friendships do; menial introductions, commentary on the weather, blowing on the smoldering embers of every rumor she heard. Roxas time stamped the progression of their friendship with each additional lawn ornament purged from the garden section's clearance shelf.

The ceramic purple frog was the keeper of Larxene managing to  _tell_  Roxas about his relationship with every person inside Axel's house while the portly gnome with its askew red hat and watchful gaze was the signifier for her rather long winded explanation behind her decision to become an Atmospheric Scientist. Though, the cyan and canary yellow bird bath Roxas had hoisted out of the car for her—this politeness had earned him a day's worth of silence from Axel—was the most significant. It was where Roxas washed his hands of the continuity that was his uncertainty about Axel's proclivity to being an absolute windbag

"You do know why I do this, right?" Larxene had stopped on the sidewalk one evening to observe Axel's duteous attention to his gaudy yard. He'd picked up a set of spotted mushrooms from the flea market, and when Roxas had politely forgone any interest in assisting in his neurotic decorating he'd lazily skated toward Larxene.

"I've spent the last six weeks contemplating exactly how much I wanted to know."

" _Oh_ —and here I'd thought you'd figured it out already." Her arms were crossed over her meager chest. "Instead of being a bad boyfriend you're just stupid."

His GPA might've been one point from academic probation, but he wasn't what he'd call stupid. Fatalistic might've worked if he was in one of his more somber moods but never  _stupid_. "He's not my boyfriend."

" _Boy_ … That was really beside the point. You  _are_  stupid."

Roxas realized he'd done exactly what Olette had during Axel's fundraiser, and he sealed his lips for a moment before working his brain. "Uh, so, why do you two do this? Is it just— _boredom_?"

"Look at him," she demanded. "Two years ago he mocked my family of ceramic squirrels that were a gift from my sick mom. When she came to visit I set them outside. I told him he could only dream of outdoing the tackiness in my bloodline because he hadn't  _earned_ to know the sentimental value behind those rodents, and the next morning he set out the ugliest row of plastic sunflowers I'd ever seen in my life. He refuses to be one upped. It's almost as incredible as it is disgusting, and I have a lot of fun making him miserable with it. Diamond is so pathetic but everyone wipes his ass and saves the toilet paper for their scrapbooks."

Roxas realized then and there that Larxene had mistaken his stupidity for his naïve faith in humanity. Baking beneath the sun's rays was a man who Roxas knew to have an underlying illness. He was sick with mourning, post-traumatic stress that rippled beneath his skin and a sense of entitlement that was very recent. It didn't take a genius to understand being set up as a sellable object could lessen someone's self-worth and there were reasons for him to be the way he was. Not that people were allowed to be excused from their wrongdoings, but Roxas sometimes considered the possibility that there was a reason for everything and Axel's arrogance was a part of his coping mechanism. His myths and legends and cumulative speeches about the world he hardly knew were a fantasy and Larxene was taking advantage of his emotional instability. She couldn't have known, but Roxas was still embarrassed for both himself and Axel. He wished he wasn't.

"Whoa?" He offered, suddenly put off.

"No offense to your taste, but he's a fucking joke."

Roxas pursed his lips and simultaneously raised his brow before kicking off to glide across the street. He curved toward the sidewalk and glided behind Axel's dented car before stomping the end of his board and catching the ejected chunk of wood in mid-air. Roxas jogged over to Axel who was seated on the grass perplexed, tossed the board onto the grass and knelt down beside him. "Alright—so, where are we putting these?"

* * *

A week before Halloween Axel appeared on Roxas' doorstep. This was an anomaly for reasons Roxas didn't feel the need to point out, but the redhead had brought along a grocery bag consisting of canned Italian food that for once wasn't off-brand, and who was Roxas to say no to one of Axel's finer home cooked meals? The dark circles under his eyes left him looking emaciated so Roxas stepped aside and invited Axel into the townhouse. When the man was preoccupied with looking around, he fleetingly raised an arm and breathed in only to exhale in disdain at his own scent. He wondered if he could get away long enough to shed his sweats and scrub his body with steel wool. Just because Axel had touched his vomit didn't mean Roxas endorsed being disgusting.

"Not that I don't have pride in my refined dump, but why in the hell do you hang out with us again?" The downstairs was an open floor plan so Axel had no problem finding the kitchen. On the counter Roxas' cleaning lady had scrubbed earlier that morning he began stacking the four cans of food, three variations of candy bars, and then as if Mary Poppins herself unveiled a bottle of cheap pinot grigio. "I'm not being romantic. Demyx says wine gives him a headache and his sister bought him this for his birthday, so he let me take it off his hands in exchange for the rest of my stash. It was only shake. Really, I can't tell who lost out more at this point."

"That thesis thing isn't going well?"

"Things could be worse—I'm here because I remembered you mentioning how the culprit wouldn't be around tonight." Axel purposely knocked the cans over and caught them before they rolled off onto the tiled flooring. "And this is a big place for one person. I just thought I'd come over and share my craving for processed food. You know how generous I am when it comes to you. What with all that charity you  _need_."

" _Okay_ , smartass." Roxas claimed the spaghetti and meatballs by snatching up the can and tucking it away into the pouch of his hooded sweatshirt. "But can you hold out on your one of twenty thousand good deeds required to get past the Pearly Gates? I'm rank."

"I like it when my boys emit a ripe stench. Ripe means ready."

Roxas returned the can of spaghetti and meatballs in mock disgust and disappeared for a quick shower. Leaving Axel alone in his home would've been weird had Hayner not gone home for the weekend to be in some wedding he'd only fleetingly mentioned the very day he packed up his overnight bag. Roxas didn't flinch when Hayner ruffled his hair goodbye, but his stomach churned and face heated like an electric stove.

The night was spent on the living room couch with bowls of food balanced on thighs and the usual movie both of them were only half-interested in. After stuffing their faces and acknowledging yet again they were probably going to die from some canned food cancer, Roxas restlessly stared at the screen. Wanting to talk was something only people of the opposite gender were supposed to nag about, but sometimes Axel left him with his life on the line and the impossible desire to want  _more_. What had once been a sensation reserved for the strangest of days had made a beeline for the everyday. Roxas had told Axel everything. When was it his turn?

Larxene had mentioned earning the knowledge of sentiment. While there was a chunk of the world hell bent on letting the universe know everything from the colorization of their piss to the food they'd consumed that day there were some who preferred the commentary of and on others. Roxas wasn't sure if he had earned the right to be curious about Axel. Xion's illness was not his entire world, and so far it was the only piece of Axel he had made an effort to delve into. He'd never considered that an error until now and while Roxas had spent the entirety of his college experience painting Axel as selfish and conceited he had never thought to turn the tables.

For a minute or two they played tennis with the idea of going out somewhere, but the concept fizzled out when Roxas opened one of the candy bars. Axel knew how to time things because it wasn't until Roxas had finished his Three Musketeers, subtly sucked the chocolate from his teeth and set aside the wrapper did Axel seize the moment by leaning over and attempting to initiate the usual nightly routine of sucking face and angrily grabbing at one another's limbs until someone decided to dig around for the always misplaced bottle of lube. Whoever found it first usually got to top, but it always depended on the mood. For example, that night Axel was coaxing him onto his back and Roxas was automatically accommodating.

"Tense," Axel brought this observation to light just when Roxas realized he himself wasn't being half as receptive as usual. Axel paused once Roxas' spine met the cushions and settled a palm by his head. He was leaned over and cautious. "Are you going to relax?"

He squinted. "You're the one being weird right now."

"I never said you were being weird. I said you're being tense."

"Thanks for clarifying," Roxas gripped at his shoulder and lightly kneaded at the fabric before bringing him back down. "But I'm fine. Don't stop now. I was getting into it."

He was until Axel cautiously settled between his legs and the weight of another person on top of him registered. They were both clothed, but Roxas' tongue turned to cotton and he couldn't find their usual rhythm as his blood turned to sand. At first, he decided it was only frustrating until his chest tightened and from there it became concerning. Roxas' fingers petted through Axel's soft hair, and he hoped it wasn't obvious even though every brushing of the tongue forced his face to burn with mortification because it was sandpaper sliding against slime. His body temperature dropped then spiked, his fingers twitched at first then began trembling and he was one more stroke of the thigh away from punching Axel off of him and boiling himself until he felt clean.

Unexpectedly, Axel retracted as if shoved onto a bushel of thorns. "You're not here with me right now."

It wasn't cruel, but Roxas still inhaled the need to cry. His eyes burned with tears, but he didn't let anymore emasculating shame drip from him. "What the fuck ever."

"It's okay." Axel sat back on his feet and proceeded to close Roxas' legs. "It's because we're here, right? That was a bad call on my part. I'm sorry."

The flat out apology shocked Roxas into silence, but he quickly sat up and pressed the small of his spine against the couch's arm. He played with his own fingers for a few minutes before speaking again. "That's never happened before. That doesn't happen."

"I told you, Roxas. SSC or castration…"

"I know, I know."

It had never occurred to Roxas that maybe he spent so much time at Axel's because he didn't feel safe in his own home, which answered Axel's first question upon entering the house. After what Roxas considered to be a fiasco, the two decided the living room was no longer carrying good energy and they packed up to go to bed in Axel's bedroom with its psychedelic paisley walls and nosey white ferret, but before reaching over to turn off his lamp, Axel looked to Roxas.

"Tomorrow we'll talk, okay?"


	14. Pirate Ships

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quietly recommends a mini playlist.
> 
> I Know You Care - Ellie Goulding  
> Different Child - Roo Panes  
> We Are - Gloom ft. CoMa  
> Tomorrow - Daughter

When the world was giving Roxas whiplash Pence was nowhere to be found, but when Roxas was at his most neutral there he was. Their friendship had been laid out by Olette four years beforehand during the days her mother forced her into cheerleading when she would've rather spent afternoons lying by the pool with Diet Coke and Nicholas Sparks novels. Pence had made an observation about Roxas' consistently ugly expressions that varied along the scale of Jack Nicholson in The Shining and that one character whose actress he couldn't place from the Princess Diaries but specifically her character pre-makeover. While standing beside Olette in the middle school pickup line he'd informed Roxas that if his personality had a face, then it'd include a uni-brow. Roxas had smiled. Olette had seen and from there she pushed the two together be it class projects or sitting side-by-side at the lunch table. They should've been best friends, but Hayner's overbearing presence had nipped that in the bud before gestation.

Pence's taste in R&B made for the kind of car rides that left both him and Roxas bobbing in their seats and participating in their very own Boys to Men tribute band. Roxas was gifted with what Pence affectionately referred to as 'white boy soul,' and when Roxas panned his hand in front of him as if a stage performer Pence purposely turned off the volume to catch Roxas in the middle of an even flowing verse. His laughter bubbled when Roxas' voice rang true to the training his mother had paid for. Notes swooped off his tongue like diving sparrows and upturned only to disperse in the air like an atomizer spritz. Pence's dad was a music producer which meant he'd been raised to understand just enough to know he didn't want any part of the industry. That being said he could play jazz drums, and at the rate he was going, his eventual thesis paper would highlight his investigative research behind why Justin Timberlake is in fact  _not_  important.

"Your voice trills at the end." Pence attempted to mock it, but he didn't have the heart to make it wrench. He lifted his hand to represent the change in scale. "Tell me you feel it in your chest when you do that."

"I don't feel anything," Roxas lied and reached for the volume knob. "Man, don't interrupt."

"But that's so crisp. It's crystal clear. Why're you so unaware of yourself?"

He laughed and bobbed his head, belting out lyrics above his cup of Pike Roast before kissing the rim. "You don't know how aware I've been lately."

"You're wearing cheaper clothes. Does that have something to do with it?"

Roxas set aside his coffee, planted a hand over his heart as if meaningfully serenading Pence and proceeded to lift his middle finger. He sang out the next sentence. "It has everything to do with it."

They were on their way to class. Pence and Roxas had signed up to be in the same writing course in hopes of managing to regularly keep in contact, but they hadn't gotten past eating Panda Express together twice a week while contorting their faces over the concept of an ethnographic research paper. It didn't help Pence had decided against living even remotely close to campus. This was why Roxas decided to call him the morning after Axel promised to talk and suggested they spend thirty minutes in the Starbucks drive thru. When Roxas gave Pence the address to his location there had been a pause followed by  _you_ ,  _still_ ,  _hangout_ ,  _there_  and a glaring question mark that made Roxas' blood run cold.

Sometimes he wanted to tell Pence about the dicks he gagged on. Technically, there were only two, but that meager number didn't give as much  _oomph_  as a vague insinuation so Roxas dramatized the circumstances. If any of his three childhood friends could brush it aside, then it would be Pence. At the rate he was going Pence would probably politely inform Roxas he had known since the moment he turned his head away from Olette's bra when really Roxas had only done so because Olette was more sibling-like than a sexual entity. Olette's bra aside, Roxas couldn't out himself to his circle of friends for fear it get back to his parents and Fox News show up on his lawn.

"Hayner said you pretty much live in Uptown. What're you even doing there?"

"Someone…"

Pence cackled. "And how's  _that_?"

"I want to lie on the ground, sink into the earth, become top soil and fertilize a rose garden."

"That's really tragic. Write me a poem."

"Not on your life."

Pence leaned back in his seat and fixed his Versace sunglasses before closing his mouth for a particularly long span of time. They listened to music in drifting silence, and when the campus came into view Roxas checked his phone for messages. The man he'd left passed out naked with a ferret in his hair and used condom inches from his dangling fingertips was still comatose with drool draining onto his pillowcase. More than once Roxas had caught himself scraping at the patches of dried saliva on the bed's bottom sheet and the first time he'd been caught Axel had raised his hands in defense of himself. _I sleep like the dead and secrete fluids just as readily_. Roxas had given him a less than impressed stare.

"What's his name?"

Roxas' attention snapped away from his phone. He wasn't correlating anything. " _Wait_ —what? I wasn't paying attention."

"That person who's turning you into Katherine Mansfield."

His expression flattened as he scooted down in his seat and snapped down his sunglasses. "Man, I have no idea what you're talking about, but it's so  _not_  a dude."

Pence wasn't convinced. "Whatever you say."

"What's  _that_ supposed to mean?"

"What's _what_  supposed to mean?"

Roxas turned himself to face his entire body toward Pence. "What do you _know_?"

"Man, someone who can reflect visible, ultra-violet  _and_  infrared light must be impossible to deal with. Not to mention being the hardest substance on earth, capable of surviving severe chemical and radioactive forces, and one of the few components that won't trigger the human immune system. We keep finding synthetic people just like that, but I know you. A knockoff isn't going to get you where you need to be. Let me tell you something, Roxas. You've always had an eye for value and maybe that's why you've always been the saddest out of all of us. You see, we're treading through the Dollar General in life. Accepting the worthless in exchange for the easiest isn't conducive to long standing happiness. You know—my dad always told me you get what you pay for, but really, you get what you work for, especially when you find  _reason_. Quality has a price, and I hope he's the real thing because you've worked harder than the rest of us for something more."

Roxas stewed in his words. "How long have you known?"

"Just because somewhere in the Bible it says they're hood rats doesn't mean their gossip isn't the beefiest broth."

"You're Buddhist."

"Well, can't win 'em all. Can  _you_?

The evening of that same day Roxas found the keys to his dust sanctuary of a Mercedes. Dusk had been streaming tangerine rays into the front of his townhouse when Axel sent the confirmation text that let Roxas know there was no skirting around the plans they'd made. Blond and blue eyes pressed his lips together, replied asking where exactly they were supposed to go and went back to smearing marshmallow cream onto one of Hayner's chocolate protein bars.

After Hayner ran off with Roxas' box of Fruit Roll-Ups there'd been an ongoing silent war to see who could eat the other roommate's groceries first. The simmering animosity between the two men had reached the demented point of power and control where, in order to win this binge competition, Roxas relapsed into purging. Before he bothered leaving to meet Axel he vomited up five protein bars made slick by tacky cream, clogged the toilet and spent forty-five minutes attempting to plunger partially digested health food in vain. He left the mess for Hayner and no note explaining why his shit smelled like s'mores.

* * *

Axel wanted to meet on the bridge, which was notably dramatic, but that wasn't a new trope between them. When his car rolled through shivering naked trees he spotted a parked KIA soon found to be empty. Breath floated from his lips like rolling chimney smoke when he decided it was better to seek the man out than standby with freezing joints. With his phone abandoned in the car and his hands nestled into the warmth of his hoodie's front pocket he strode toward the bridge. Unsurprisingly, Axel was there leaned over the railing and Roxas could already imagine the rust stains on his metallic gold jacket's sleeves.

The bridge Roxas originally met Axel on was a historical landmark. During the Civil War it'd witnessed brother slaying brother, hovered over red-tinted waters and supported carts hiding runaway slaves. All of this Roxas learned during his fifth grade field trip that'd been one of his private school's sadder attempts to utilize the excessive budget. Until the day he'd met Axel Diamond he'd forgotten it even existed among the overgrown foliage of a more forgotten segment of town. Even over a year later he couldn't recall what had prompted him to make that trip. Maybe it was nostalgia, maybe it was privacy, maybe it was simply a sudden tick.

Not that it mattered anymore. None of it did because he was still incapable of taking a nose dive off the bridge. Some days he thought he liked himself enough to identify as someone, and because he considered himself human that made suicide that much more intrusive to his seemingly non-existent moral agenda. How disassociated was a person when the line between murder and suicide blurred? Was it progress in personal strength when the concept of killing yourself lost its seamless appeal and gained a definition? If he could equate the end of his own life to a fifty-seven stab wound homicide on the 6 o'clock news, then just maybe things were becoming personal again.

The blond wasn't sure if Axel had heard him step onto the bridge or not, but that uncertainty gave him time to examine the profound differences between the day they'd met and then. Aside from how Axel was ten pounds thinner with sideburns he had no intentions of shaving he was also significantly less buoyant. Roxas wasn't swept up in the kinetic of their first encounter and maybe the lack of whimsy was simply that natural stage of knowing someone. It wasn't that he was disenchanted, but Axel was his life in a lot of ways and the life someone has is never as interesting as it could be if it belonged to the neighbor.

"That jacket is hideous."

The redhead's laughter crackled and he fleetingly coughed on cigarette smoke. The cough was buried in his the hollow of his chest and Roxas knew he'd been fighting the common cold for about a week. "It's from one of my finer years."

"When you wanted to be glam?"

"When I  _did_  glam, yes."

Roxas stepped toward him and thoughtlessly kicked a pebble into the river. "You were only thirty years too late."

"The correlation between time and fashion is for anthropologists."

"This talk had to happen here, huh? You're sick. It's cold. Do the math."

Broad shoulders rolled beneath gold fabric and he took a quick inhale from the filter held between his thumb and forefinger before flicking it over the railing. "I'm a poignant person."

"Something like that."  _More like ill._  He shifted in front of Axel and leaned against the railing. His smile was uncharacteristically at ease and Axel's lips were at first thin-lined but they curved due to Roxas' magnetism. "You're looking good, but that's pretty typical of you."

Roxas groaned in dismay. "That was uncalled for."

"I'm a foul person. I'm sorry."

"You make me want to wash your mouth out with Dawn."

"I'd probably like it."

That made Roxas side glance with a glare of contemplation. "So—like,  _anyway_..."

"Do you remember," Axel began as he strode toward the other end of the bridge, "the night we saw each other the second time?"

A strange fondness washed over Roxas. "Strawberry syrup, pentagrams and hipbones."

"That's what you remember?"

"Sorry for being a normal person. Of course those would be the things I remember."

"Right,  _normal_ —but I said I wanted to talk with you and what did we do?"

Roxas had to think. "Sleep... slept..."

There was the horrifying romantic instinct to follow that with some half-masked admittance that they fell in love somewhere along the line but Axel beat him to the punch. "We haven't stopped doing that together."

"You're off your game today, seriously."

"Roxas, I've never had an ounce of game."

To which Roxas let out a gross chortle. "And then the false modesty came and conquered all over my face."

Somehow Axel managed to keep a straight face. "You let me do that to you a lot."

" _Hello_. What is  _up_ with you today?"

The redhead reached behind his head and softly brushed his fingers through his deceivingly soft tresses before floating toward the hairs on the back of his neck. His head gave a minor tilt and Roxas watched as Axel struggled with words. He breathed out a weak 'yeesh' that made Roxas' anxiety kick up dust because the apprehension was thickly iced and he couldn't imagine what exactly was wrong.

"You know," Axel began hesitantly, "you know how we're planning on going to the beach with Xion?"

"Sure. She called me bath soap."

That made him chuckle but it quickly trailed off into a smile that was sadder than any of the lopsided frowns he'd seen the man wear during the time they'd known each other. He looked past Roxas and concentrated on a melting clump of leaves for a handful of seconds before his brow twitched and his features fell apart. "We're going because she gets to go home. She's coming home tomorrow, actually."

Roxas watched as Axel tasted his mouth and swiped his hands across one another as some strange gesture meant to create movement between them. "Isn't that a  _good_  thing?"

"Nah, Roxas. Not at all."

He refused to register what that implied. "What do you mean? If she's going home, then she's better. She doesn't need a fucking hospital anymore. That's  _great_."

"She's coming home to die, Roxas."

If he'd paused to let it sink in, then it would've become real.

"What do you mean?" His voice grew pitchy as consonants and vowels scattered across the wind. "What do you fucking mean she's dying? She looks fine!"

"And isn't that the damndest fucking thing!" Axel's voice rose as he attempted to keep a straight face. "Isn't that the most poignant fucking thing about all of this? Every dying person we know looks fucking  _fine_."

Suddenly, Axel pushed the heels of his palms beneath both of his eyes and Roxas' lips trembled behind an angry stare that could've burn the very bridge they stood on. They were concentrated on one another and discerning where the last uttered sentence belonged. Roxas exhaled as if he'd finished running a mile only to turn away from Axel, walk a couple steps and then pivot. His hand lifted to his mouth as he watched the river carry the moment away in its current. When he breathed back snot he wasn't sure if it was from the cold or inevitable grief begging to sink into his skin and begin germination. He decided it was a combination of both.

"Does she know?" Everything about him turned glassy and he combusted into car crash shards when Axel's laughter was the sharp reply. "Don't laugh.  _For the love of fuck._  Don't laugh at me right now."

"She's known longer than  _anyone_  else." Axel leaned over the railing again before beating his clenched fist against the rust until Roxas contemplated reaching and taking his arm. He was going to hurt himself. "She told me to my face she'd accepted it long before Mom and Dad broke it to her. Even after all of my promises. She didn't fucking believe a single one. She never believed me when I said she'd get better."

"How long have you two  _known_?" Roxas snatched up his wrist. "Axel, how long have  _you_  fucking known? Why didn't you  _tell_ me?

"She said she didn't want to make you sadder!" The screamed words were guttural and hinged on sing-song. His voice had broken. "She said you were  _so_  sad already and she'd tell you when she thought you were ready! I wasn't going to stop her thirteen year old logic because it's her fucking life and she doesn't have much more time to make her own decisions! I've always wanted her to make her own decisions! I've always wanted  _something_  more for her!"

"You could've told me the truth! Lying to me isn't going to fucking make me happier. We're best friends and I could've played this off to her if you'd just been honest!"

"That would've been counter productive because the truth doesn't always make things better and she wants you to be better!"

It was Roxas' turn to yell. "I  _am_  better!  _We_  are getting better!"

"Then why can't I fucking love you?"

"This is not about  _you_!"

Axel's face became a year of seasons and storms. Sunshine drifted into the overcast morning before encasing itself in flurries that tore away siding and spring branches. Honey combs in hives combusted and froze before meeting the earth's blossoming foliage. It wasn't an epiphany but the acknowledgement of a natural error.

"I'm not being succinct," he admitted. "Roxas, I'm sorry."

The blond's entire form broke down like he'd taken an injection of brown recluse venom. "If you were sorry about  _anything_ , then we wouldn't be what we are right now. That would've never came out of your mouth."

"I've had it up to here with this shit." Here being as high as Axel could raise his hand. "It's about Saïx, isn't it?"

"Explain to me why that'd be so surprising. Explain something _important_ to me."

"No—you're  _right_." He pushed away from the railing before turning a palm toward the sky as if waiting for his explanation to drop from the heavens. "You have no idea what makes that what it is and why it adds to what we are. Do you even know how long I've known Saïx?"

Roxas wondered why this conversation was happening before he'd even processed Xion's terminal state. Everything about them was inappropriate. "I sort of assumed you two met in college. I don't know. Axel, I don't care anymore. Right now I couldn't care less, really."

"Shut up. You care. I know you care." His irritation was inflamed. "I've known him since I was put in the system. I've known him for almost fifteen years."

The inferiority that plagued Roxas made him suck in a startled breath before it waned into softened distress. "That's a long time."

"When the state doesn't have enough foster families to take its problematic repossessed kids they scatter them through institutions that have beds. It doesn't matter what the institution's purpose serves. If there's food, supervision and a place to sleep, then it's functional enough for a child to be there. At least, temporarily. For a while there wasn't a family for me so they placed me into a behavioral health home, which is a much nicer title for a psych ward." Axel swallowed spit and waited for Roxas to say something, but he had nothing to offer. "Saïx wasn't there on the foster care waiting list. It was anger problems. He bloodied some kid. You would've never guessed, though. He was really quiet..." Axel was rambling and he must've caught himself because he cleared his throat and continued. "A nearby family took me in and adopted me. Saïx and I ended up going to the same school when we both got out. That's not supposed to happen for confidential reasons, but it did."

"What a lucky fluke..." Roxas furrowed his brow and didn't notice his anger stepping onto an escalator. "So what are you telling me? Because he's known you  _longer_  means he has  _superiority_  over me? Do you even know what you're saying to me right now? Saïx hasn't been here taking the brunt of your indecisiveness and setting himself up to watch someone he loves  _die_. Saïx hasn't had his self-worth diminished in hopes that you'll come around and finally explain to him what is so  _wrong_  with him that you can't even think to love him.  _Please_ , for the love of  _God_! Tell me what is so wrong with me that you can spend almost every ounce of your free time with me but somehow cannot find it in you to give a legitimate shit about how I feel? You have an answer for everything! You love to tell me how it is! Now's your time to shine like the diamond you are and preach, preach, preach! Like always I'm your ignorant congregation fucking throbbing for you unearthly knowledge!"

Axel clasped onto the sides of his face with an assertive clap that made him flare up. The impact felt like a smack, but that wasn't the case. When the initial shock of the jarring grab faded Roxas glanced up to see Axel's torment etched into tears, thick breathing and the sound of hard choking from autumn sickness. He redirected his face to keep from coughing on Roxas, but when his choleric chest gave way Axel shook his head.

"It's because you're getting better!" All the self-exploited prestige vanished from Axel's tone as he yelled. "Because you're getting stronger and I'm so fucking anemic. This is not where opposites attract. Didn't you hear me the day you walked in on me and Kairi? Weren't you there with me? Look at you—loving yourself and becoming who you want to be..." He scanned Roxas' entire being in frenzied disbelief. "You are actually  _beautiful_. When we talk you make me feel so insignificant and  _stupid_. You're above me with your resplendent indelicacy and from the moment you agreed to spend time with me I've been enthralled with you. Anytime I touch you it's as if I could melt into your goodness and I'm so unworthy of who you are and what you'll become."

"You're really upset right now because of Xion. This was the worst place for this kind of talk. You've got to stop setting yourself up for—"

"And so you're healing while I'm decaying beside you with no regeneration in sight. I love myself less and so I treat you as a lesser being all while you learn and want to love more. I'm Apollyon over here. I am  _the_ wretched plague between us. All I wanted was to show you that you deserve whatever kind of happiness you saw fit for yourself, and I did the opposite. So tell me, Roxas. Why can't I love  _you_ when you're the best thing? Because I don't have the answer to this problem. Why are you getting better and why am I getting worse? What is wrong with  _me_?"

Roxas pushed Axel's hands off his face for the sake of personal space and wondered if it would be feasible to devour his palms in order to muffle his need to scream from frustration. He wanted to tell Axel to find a shrink and deal with himself before trying to deal with other people, but there was nothing about that even relatively fair when he was a swelling headcase only halfway attempting to reestablish his own person. Roxas saw his progress as miniscule while Axel was relaying his observations of these changes as remarkable, awe-inspiring and intimidating.

"I don't have the answer." Roxas whispered an apology between each word and tried his best to laugh at himself. Exhaustion was becoming a theme between them. He wanted to go to sleep and was beginning to think that was the only time Axel and he were compatible anymore. "Let's sit in your car. It's cold out here." As if to prove his point, his teeth fleetingly chattered like the co-starring Cenobite's.

Tumultuous paths were meant for intersections. The decision neither of them could make was whether or not they wanted to be in the passenger seat alongside each other or driving their individual devices into an inevitable collision. Which had the highest survival rate or were both simply an act of chance? Roxas reached to take Axel's hand as they abandoned speaking altogether and strode toward the KIA. It had never occurred to him until then he could tuck and roll. He didn't  _have_  to keep doing this. He didn't  _have_  to be with someone.

Only after they were seated in the car and Axel was sucking down smoky fumes with shaking hands did the redhead speak up. "Don't leave me because of this."

"You don't have the right to ask anything of me."

"I know. It's selfish."

"Then why won't you just  _stop_?"

Axel pushed his fingers through his hair and leaned back in his seat and Roxas pressed the side of his head against the cold window. He'd developed a migraine on top of his throat being sore from upchucking earlier in the afternoon and he was suddenly enamored with the idea of running away. Maybe Axel had been right all along or maybe he was just trying to prove he was right by pushing Roxas as far away as he possibly could. If this entire spell of insanity was some kind of test of wills, then Axel was winning.

When his sometime-boyfriend reached up to push back the snot dripping from his nose he said something Roxas believed to be redeeming. "Wanna fuck?"

"You'll get me sick."

"Does it really matter at this point?"

No—it didn't. If Roxas was going to get sick, then it was already going to happen considering, on most days, the general population would've been hard-pressed not to find him sucking face with Axel. It was as if he were in search of the man's soul and could plunge it free from his throat with his tongue. There was an addictive aspect to finally receiving the sort of physical affection he wanted on his terms.

Axel had an even better suggestion. "Or we could go home and watch all the seasons of Gilmore Girls. I'm pretty sure Demyx bought them on an Ebay whim two years ago."

Out of nowhere Roxas' staccato laughter turned belly up. "What is wrong with you two?"

"I just got done with a premature life crisis and the entire time I was wearing a tacky gold jacket and you have the nerve to ask me why I am who I am. Where have you been the past four nuclear meltdowns?"

He kept laughing and reached up to lazily wipe up the remaining tears on his face. "I've been in the fucking break room."

"This  _entire_  time?"

"Get out. I'm not ready for your criticisms."

"It's  _my_  car!"

Quiet laughter dissipated and the lump in Roxas' throat made his eyes water again as they sat there without exchanging thoughts they'd purposely evaded. Every time something happened they forgave each other due to an unspoken principle neither of them bothered to identify. The wetness in Roxas' eyes gave way and he stared hard at the dashboard in hopes the tears would spare him for a couple seconds. They decided it wasn't a day to be merciful and with a soft hiccup Roxas sucked back autumn hardened air and followed suit with stilled sobbing. His shoulders shook with trembles that made his muscles clench and burn, and he hardly noticed when Axel wrapped an arm around the side of his head and pulled him over so that he could bury his face into his chest. It wasn't until then had Roxas ever truly known sadness. Everything else had been a waste of breath.

* * *

That night Roxas laid beside Axel with his fingers dragging along raised ribs he knew came from a combination of grief and stress. Beside the bed were stacked books from classes the man seemingly never took, but apparently all was well in his realm of thesis. There were nights when he wondered what exactly Axel did when they weren't in one another's company. It wasn't that he expected the man's existence to revolve around his, but Roxas had to admit there were few things he looked forward to more than picking out a place to choke down food in some back alley restaurant better left for salmonella. No matter how many times Roxas attempted to slyly push his credit card onto the bill Axel's hand appeared with a hard whack. Once he'd even slammed a butter knife between his index and middle finger to make a point. From then on they'd always split the bill.

"How about we run away  _together_."

The suggestion was post-coital and tied up in sticky skin and working lungs. Roxas would've said anything to Axel during those moments but right then he meant it. For once in his life he knew he meant something and then was the time for a positive reaction. Fortunately, Axel caught onto the importance of that suggestion before lazily rolling himself on top of Roxas. From how he was breathing Roxas knew this would be the position they'd fall asleep in. Already Roxas was spreading his thighs to accommodate him for a long night of entangled sleeping. They'd become exceptionally knowledgeable of one another's bodies and when exactly it was time to take root for a generous seven hours of growth.

"Where would we go?  _When_  would we go?"

Axel's face pressed into the crook of his neck and he knew he was supposed to be too young to understand the current ache in his guts. The kind of thick infatuation he'd been handed teetered on the edge of toxic impassions and he wondered how anything between them remained drawn together. The haze of feeling submerged beneath miles of encasing water caused his hearing to distort and suddenly he was as water-logged as the boy beneath Axel's bed. There was something deteriorating about the idea of romance that made his molars ache and pressure threaten to combust blood cells, but he was entranced with concepts and young ambitions he'd only recently discovered.

"After..." Roxas rolled his lips together. "After Xion..."

"With what money— _wait_..."

Suddenly Axel snorted and Roxas couldn't move his arms too well but he gestured wildly. "Because that's a problem here."

"Amazing. I almost forgot you're a privileged private school boy with a Mercedes."

A tug within Roxas' chest lifted an unrealized weight off his body. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Even better. I mean it."

They fell asleep and Roxas didn't even question Axel's lack of an answer because it came later that night when he woke up to Axel's tremors. Before he opened his eyes he knew what was going on and the hot specks of water on his neck only came after the fact. His fingers lazily played in the back of Axel's pillow-flattened hair.

"I like the seashore."

"Me too."


	15. Skull Rock

For two boys in premature mourning, Roxas and Axel looked offensively bright in terms of mood and air. They stood side-by-side in Versace black and an orange vintage pea coat that'd evidently played cards with moths several times before, and when the sun snagged a touch along their wrap around sunglasses, they looked intentionally refined. Roxas was attempting to wash his tongue off the roof of his mouth with repetitive gulps of coffee while Axel aggressively hummed the tune to Gary Glitter's _Do You Wanna Touch_ , and they weren't bored so much as they were avoiding the elephant in the room. Discussing anything about themselves at that point felt relatively taboo, and they weren't incredibly important on that day, anyway. _They_ could wait.

"Your parents are really nice," Roxas murmured, taking the sudden comfortable silence between them head on before sucking smoke from one of Axel's cloves. Right then the cloves smelled like Christmas and Roxas was nostalgic for the oncoming holidays down to the tall boots he'd ransacked from his old closet. "I think they like me."

"Yeah, but who _wouldn't_ like you?" Axel's teeth chattered while he smiled and stuffed his hands into his armpits. "As soon as you leave do you know what's going to happen? My mom's going to walk through the den, right? She'll walk through the den with the unassuming suburban housewife stride she's perfected over the years, and I won't _act_ like I know she has something to say, but there's no negating the certainty I'll have to succumb to her matriarchal will. She's going to grab my shoulder and dig her acrylic tips into my skin just enough to make her maternal point. _Then_ she'll tug me down so that she can talk to me the way women do when their offspring are screeching in the checkout line."

"And what will she say?" Roxas asked as he reached behind himself for his chipped mug of coffee. The coffee had cooled down, but he drank it anyway.

Axel leaned into Roxas' hood until his face disappeared behind the tufts of fur. "She'll tell me you're special. In fact, she's going to think you're so special she won't know how else to elaborate on her point, but I'll know what she means. In her own vague motherly manner she'll let me know you're _that_ person. You're the _red string_. That letting you go will be the greatest error I could ever make—aside from furthering my education in philosophy, of course."

"Which you've already done…"

" _Ah_ —and so you see what I'm trying to say, right?"

Roxas was holding the clove away from the both of them, but he could still smell the fumes on Axel. He had to retract a gag as he spoke, because it was too Nicholas Sparks for his taste. "I could either be the worst mistake or greatest success of your entire life."

Axel laughed and Roxas could see he also found the concept distasteful. His next bout of sarcasm proved Roxas' suspicions. "Isn't that _romantic_?"

"I'm going to breathe my coffee breath in your face if you don't stop."

Xion was coming home that morning, which was why they were waiting outside the Diamond home as the saddest attempt at a Welcoming Committee either of them had seen. Roxas had spent the night before trying to come to terms with the recent turn of events. This proved easier said than done considering he had no way of gauging his own life beyond seven days. The future wasn't an accessible plain he could look forward to plowing. Roxas knew what he and Axel planned to do together wasn't tangible, but there they were going with the flow of possibilities. Roxas told himself those were the vague tidings of life in need of spending, and Axel hadn't said anything about running away together since the night they'd agreed it was for the best.

The hardest part of it all was realizing they were still strangers to one another. Did Roxas even know Axel Diamond? Because there were times when he was still pleasantly (and not so pleasantly) surprised by the other man. Even if it was just a new interest, noise or reason for Axel to be excited, it was still something eye catching. When the moon was right they fell into the grit of romance where they kissed long enough for Demyx to walk in on them and purposely begin knocking things off the countertops to make them stop, but Roxas didn't know if that meant anything. For all Roxas knew, Axel had an agenda involving premeditated murder. But he liked to think that what they were was definitely _something_.

"Xion has the biggest crush on you," Axel said as he pulled back and went to finish his coffee. He'd smartly put his in a thermos. "There might be a Diamond sibling throw down."

"She doesn't have a crush on me." Roxas side eyed him even though Axel couldn't see the look through his shades. "I'm like an extension of you. That weird blond guy who brings her nice presents to make up for his emotional ineptness." And then it dawned on him. "Oh, God. I'm my going to be my _father_."

"You're not your father. You learned sign language for her. Does it get anymore bleeding heart to a thirteen-year-old? You're the nicest person she's had walk into her life in a long time. A small crush is completely warranted at this point. Not to mention you're the embodiment of an AE model."

" _And_ you just called me commercial."

"The truth is lined with the pages of a JC Penny catalogue circa 1998."

Roxas rubbed his face and tried not to laugh but it sputtered out only for him to hear the familiar crunch of car tires churning gravel. The light caught the sea foam green of Xion's wig through the windows and her nose was almost pressed against the screen of her handheld gaming console. The last thing in the world she'd expected was Roxas, which was why, when she glanced out the window and saw him standing beside Axel, she threw up her hands and began animatedly talking to her parents with a smile that was so warm it could've saved the Titanic.

Xion's car door opened and there wasn't the expected slam of it behind her because she didn't have the time for anything except _them_. Her soft-soled boots padded across the melting frost and Axel was the one to scoop up her feathery body as if she were a wind-tossed leaf. Roxas' eyes flitted from the siblings on toward their red-faced mother. Roxas knew better than to conceptualize what was bothering her because he had no model of maternal distress, but he could see the contrast in the parental coping methods. Axel and Xion's father was either the pinnacle of denial or a tree within a sparse krummholz who'd held on for hundreds of years. That or maybe he was petrified wood. Either way, he'd built a protective ring of bark around himself.

Her hands fell into a frantic sequence of signing and Roxas noted how her body was like a whisper. The lightness to her was evident by how Axel could manhandle her without an ounce of visible effort, and he wasn't about to pretend Axel was significantly muscular.

_"Are you staying with us all day?"_

Roxas had gotten into the habit of speaking what he signed. "My day is freed up just for you."

Axel asked her if she was hungry and she curled her lips back over her teeth as if that was the worst question he could've asked her, but he pointedly stared at her as he carted her up the steps and into the house with Roxas trailing behind the siblings. She wanted to go to her room, which Roxas hadn't seen yet, and Axel pointed at the kitchen, but she waved him off with thirteen-year-old determination. She'd have her way and nothing else, and Roxas had to sympathize with her to some degree. They were both teenagers, and Roxas had previously realized the age difference between him and both siblings was mirrored. Sometimes he related to Xion more than Axel and vice versa. It made for a strange sort of mediation he needed to balance.

They climbed the stairs to her bedroom, passing a closed door Roxas assumed was either her parents' or Axel's old bedroom. Roxas hadn't expected anything except the atypical teenage girl's room when Axel pushed open the unlatched door with his bony hip, but he was unsurprisingly wrong for readily assuming anything about a Diamond child. Xion squirmed free from Axel's hold and proceeded to throw herself onto her bed with the slightest bounce.

Pale blue walls were lined in multi-colored Mason jars filled with dyed waters and artfully contrasting glitter that'd been intended to be aesthetically pleasing. Endless white shelves of feelings jars hardly gave the walls room to see and Roxas stared at the collection only to finally understand what Axel did with all of the jars that'd continuously disappeared from Xion's hospital bedside. This was preservation at its finest, and Roxas knew he was gazing upon something monumentally important, but he couldn't put his finger on what was so profound about it. Xion's entire heart was scattered into pieces along each shelf and Roxas wondered how long ago they'd started the jar ritual.

Axel whistled at Roxas for his attention, and Xion tossed a pillow at him before saying something. _"Can we go for a walk today?"_

 _"After you eat something,"_ Axel interjected, but Xion waved him off. It was the first time Roxas saw Axel childishly irked as his lip twitched. _"Don't do that."_

_"I can if I want to."_

Roxas grinned and Axel told him not to encourage her. Support from the blond left Xion beaming, and she suddenly buried her face into a pillow, deep sniffing the familiar fabric softener. She was happy and content to the point that Roxas refused to acknowledge she was officially in end-stage. Right then he could've convinced himself she was going to live forever, and Axel must've felt the same way because he was smiling when he subtly reached over and glided his fingertips along the small of Roxas' back.

The conversation went stale and Xion announced she wanted to set her room up, eventually running downstairs to pester her dad about bringing up her luggage, which mostly consisted of the arts and crafts she'd made while living as an inpatient. Axel crooked his finger in a come hither motion that Roxas brushed aside as he went to examine the jars, but Axel coughed to get his attention again and then smoothly said his name. Roxas and he exchanged a sequence of playfully questioning looks until the blond finally threw his hands up in exasperation and followed Axel toward the door the other had previously noted.

"Should I be excited?" Roxas pressed his cheek against Axel's bicep while still behind him.

"No, but I _definitely_ should be mortified."

He opened the door and a grotesque melon paint job met Roxas like a tossed bag of bricks. Had Roxas had less self-control, then he would've recoiled, but instead he coughed on his laughter. The walls were homage to _Velvet Goldmine_ and Roxas finally understood how far back the glitter obsession went. Not only that, but the source was Axel and Axel alone. Whether or not Xion had initially loved glitter was clearly up for grabs, and Roxas found himself thinking on everything that might've influenced Xion as he approached the periwinkle record player hidden in the corner. Beneath it sat a crate of records Roxas was tempted to pick through, but he figured from the eight different Bowie posters on the wall and the shrine to Gary Glitter above the waterbed's satin purple sheets there wasn't much mystery behind what could be there. Axel flopped down on the waterbed and it gurgled beneath him. He was soon staring up at the ceiling and avoiding Roxas' speculating looks.

"I like the Christmas lights," Roxas commented, still taking in his surroundings.

"I still can't believe my parents have kept this room as is." Axel sat up and reached for the built in shelf in his headboard where there were implicatively crusted bottles of lotion. "There's probably some kind of intentional comfort for the both of us by doing this. I don't know how I'd feel if they threw all of this shit out. Knowing them, they're waiting for me to drop some fruit from my loins so that they can turn it into a nursery."

"Do you want kids?" It was a weird question. Too early to be asking considering how they hadn't known one another that long, but Roxas wrote it off as platonic interest.

"Not in particular," Axel murmured only to pause and quirk up the side of his mouth. "Well, I don't fucking know. It's one of those things. It's sort of hard to outwit an evolutionary impulse that strong. What about you? I guess you probably think you don't have that much of choice considering you're the only child to a slave labor empire."

"I'd be scared to lose it. Seems like everyone I know is losing their kids to something." Roxas not only meant Xion, but he meant Naminé and her traumatic late term miscarriage. He cleared his throat and knew he needed to switch gears before he had nightmares about a fetus totaled by a submersion blender. Axel seemed willing to continue with the topic, but he wasn't. "This looks ancient."

On the nightstand was a picture Roxas would've never been prepared to find had he been told he'd see it. Framed in gold and to the right of a seashell ashtray sat the picture of a young Saïx and Axel in most ridiculous regalia Roxas had ever seen, but at the same time, went through him like an apparition. The two boys were perched on the freshly painted front porch of Axel's house with their platform shoes hanging off the edge and their thrifted and dyed minks puffed and ready to devour their necks like furry tarantulas. Saïx was evidently in the midst of telling Axel some infallible truth about life because he was listening with a clove in hand and completely absorbed in the other's philosophy. Roxas assumed they were in their late teens, but he couldn't be sure about anything except Axel had been chiseled to perfection since puberty.

"Who got who into the glam thing?" Roxas asked as he handed the picture over to Axel's suddenly reaching fingers.

"I think after the three week marathon of _Hedwig and the Angry_ _Inch_ and trying to decide who was more like Brian Slade and Curt Wild it became ingrained in the both of us to just take on the image. In a lot of ways we romanticized the idea of being bad for one another, which in hindsight is disgusting, but what's a man to do about himself from five years ago? Stange days, I guess. Wanting someone to be your Iggy Pop to your David Bowie, I mean." He cleared his throat. " _But_ since we're already down this rabbit hole. Want to check out my closet? _Maybe_ you'll find something you actually _like_."

Bacon fumes were being pumped into Axel's bedroom along with the sound of Xion bounding up and down the stairs, excitedly carting up all the things she wanted in her room, when Axel pushed open the pocket doors that concealed a wardrobe Roxas hadn't realized he'd anticipated seeing since Axel first admitted he'd been a walking tribute to the 70s British Rock era. Roxas inhaled at the incongruous display of prints and colors that bled together to make a heap of uncomfortable brightness that hardly reflected Axel's interior disposition. He didn't need prompting to begin parting the seas of sheer and metallic fabric that Axel could hardly look at. Roxas began tearing out hanger after hanger to examine the vintage pieces, mouthing 'oh my fucking god' with every opportune chance, and Axel looked like he wanted to _drive_ off the iron bridge.

"This is terrible," Axel muttered even though Roxas hadn't let on to that idea in any way, shape or form. "I need you to be overly critical or I might bite my tongue in half."

"Don't be so dramatic." Roxas couldn't believe himself when he said it. "Since when have _I_ ever been the critical one between us?"

Right before Roxas' eyes was a tangible example of someone who'd been stripped down to his skin. The exuberance of Axel's personality was still internally apparent, but the dandelion had long since been smashed beneath a boot and the fragments were scattered like windswept seeds. Occasionally, they attached to fabrics of others or died along the patio's railing, but they mainly drifted onto frozen soil. Axel was caught in a seemingly endless winter where there wasn't soil for growth, and Roxas knew there would be showers before flowers in their cyclic frigidness. Seasons weren't forever and what they were could thaw.

Xion poked her neon head into Axel's room only to forget what she was going to say and make a beeline for Axel's closet where she tugged out a silver vest with impressive patchwork along the back. She hugged it to her chest, made the sign that it was time to eat and then vanished to squirrel the item away in her bedroom.

"She does that a lot. For a thirteen-year-old girl, my closet is dress up heaven."

The three made their way downstairs where the Diamond family had spent their breakfasts, lunches and dinners as a unit for years. Being the guest left Roxas momentarily guarded even though he'd already raided their coffee supply and fleetingly met Axel's parents under the guise of serious friendship. He'd been there for Xion's chemotherapy, bought her countless gifts and landed on the tip of both of the Diamond siblings' tongues, but there was still a division there. Friendship in terms of Axel was an undefined label for something else entirely, and when they took their seats, Roxas wondered what exactly had managed to make his shoulders relax. The sense of normalcy was profound enough to make his chest lighten. All of the dinners his father had mandated were all at once entirely alien to him when he was asked what he was majoring in _and_ if Axel actually ate or if he was still perpetuating that myth so he wouldn't worry his mother.

"I'm at my heaviest, but thanks." Axel stabbed another waffle as if making a point. "Need to put on some weight so that I can bring the next Eames heir into the world."

Xion read his lips and gave her mother a concerned stare. _"What did he say?"_

Their mother gave Axel a critical look and he mouthed 'what' at her as if he couldn't understand why she'd want him to shut up. _"Ignore your brother."_

Roxas smiled while rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and used his final piece of bacon to mop up the remaining maple syrup on his plate. _"He's an idiot. Your mom's smart and you should listen to her."_

Behind the house was a towering tree house with gingerbread accents hand-carved for two children that were loved beyond belief. When the dishes were put away, the syrup stowed in the cabinet and Roxas' final cup of coffee had been drained, the three traipsed outside into the cold air, but only after Xion's mother had wrapped two scarves around her nose and mouth. As soon as they were outside, she unwrapped one and began dancing around the yard with it as if it were a feather boa, and Roxas wondered what music she heard in her head. What were the sounds and rhythms so naturally embedded inside of her humanness that she could dance with more fluidity than someone who'd grown up playing the cello or projecting their voice to a crowd?

"I built that tree house with my dad." Axel lazily explained. "It was the first thing we bonded over. He always wanted a son he could do that kind of shit with. I didn't complain. At the time, I think I liked it. First male bonding experience that didn't involve a dick."

The sea foam green paint along the framing accents were chipped from years of elemental exposure, and Roxas knew that at night it might've appeared eerie. Right then it was a testament to the rotting of someone's childhood and the passing of another. Was Xion just too old for the upkeep to matter anymore? She hardly seemed at the age where she'd care about the tree house much. Either way, Roxas didn't let the meaning pass through him, and he stood still as Axel approached it with his head lazily lulled back.

Roxas thought Xion was going to run up the tree house's stairway, but instead she perused past the old playhouse and darted toward the pathway Roxas hadn't even realized was there. It was the trail toward the very property where Roxas had covered himself in paint, heard Saïx fuck Axel into oblivion and it was where Axel had wanted to die probably more times than Roxas even knew. The dramatics of it all gave him a headache, and he didn't know how he had gone from the carefree kid partying through high school to _this_.

The trees were casting tired shadows over the two men as they followed after the energetic little girl and Roxas wanted to clamp his jaw shut because knowing this was the end _hurt_. Everything about Xion made him hurt yet so simultaneously happy he could understand why nothing wanted to process. Making sense of how miserably hopeful she made him wasn't fair, because what was his personal healing worth if she was just going to pass them by and become another person for the dirt to take make? Roxas had once despised the concept of recycled energy. When he died he wanted to die and be done with it, but with Xion he wanted her to keep coming back to them. He wanted her to be whole over and over again and live twenty million lives.

Their feet crunched dying frost, and when Xion was clear ahead of them, Axel reached over and caught Roxas' hand with the kind of clasp that was casual. The familiarity was something that should've been years in the making and Roxas kept his stare straight ahead as their booted feet made it through the path and on toward an open field with rolling hills of amber grass and tired bushes that were barely holding onto their final leaves. Summer was gone and the world was going to sleep for a while. Roxas wanted to hibernate along with Mother Nature, but he had to keep going and couldn't forget the world the way he'd once always tried. Life kept going, and he could either drown himself or make it through this tilted axis with his head held high.

"I don't think I ever had that much energy," Axel said, watching as Xion ran to the top of the highest hill and waved at them both before disappearing down the other side. "I've always been a lethargic piece of shit."

"You and me both." Roxas scrunched up his nose. "Where's she going?"

"We know where she's headed."

He'd had a suspicion she was headed toward the cliffs, but Roxas wasn't sure how significant they were to her. The sight was breathtaking during the clearest of nights, and when they made it toward the clearing through the thickest woods that'd only been thinned by oncoming winter, Roxas decided he liked the place better during the day. An overcast sky bled into the black blueness of the churning water and Roxas released Axel's hand to step toward Xion who was standing at the very edge of the rocky oversee with her hands stuffed into her pockets and eyes boring into the scenery. Before Roxas could reach her, Xion turned around and she was brightly smiling, but her eyes were red-rimmed, and Roxas didn't come any closer because she had something to say. It took her a minute, but she made a soft laughing noise before lifting her hands.

" _Do you think mom and dad would be mad at me if I told them this is where I want them to put me_?"

Having her acknowledge that she would need a place to spend the rest of forever made Roxas glance away and look over his shoulder to Axel for advising. He had no right to answer her question, and Axel was already walking toward her with his hands still embedded in his jacket pockets. Roxas waited for him to say something, but he took his sweet time thinking through his answer while he made his way toward her. Only when he was standing directly in front of Xion did he give her the right kind of answer.

" _If you're allowed to decide anything, then that's it. Don't feel obligated to make Mom or Dad happy. If this is where you want to be, then this is where you'll be, and I'll fight that for you_."

" _Why is this the only thing I get to have a say in_?" Xion was no longer paying attention to Roxas' presence, and she was red-faced, dewy eyed and out of nowhere incredibly angry. It'd happened so fast Roxas didn't even know what to say. She'd just been smiling. " _No one let me have a say in anything, and now I have nothing left that I can tell someone I want._ " She inhaled and was one more shot to the heart away from blubbering. Her hands were trembling. " _I never got to have my own life_. _I don't get to do anything now_. _My best friends don't even want to play with me anymore_."

Her perceptiveness was daunting for Roxas, but Axel knew how to combat it. Roxas was sure he'd been mentally preparing himself for this conversation for years. Though, not with an audience. He tried to look away, not wanting to eavesdrop, but it was easier said than done because Xion was in _tears_. The idea of her becoming jaded and bitter about everything that was happening to her right before she died made his heart quake.

" _We're going to do whatever you want_ ," Axel promised. " _From here onto whenever you go_."

While Axel was sometimes a flake, when it came to Xion, he was anything but that. Roxas parted his lips and thought for a moment before speaking to just Axel, because he knew this would make the burden on his partner's shoulders lift. "My cousin owns a beach house. We could go there for the weekend if your parents think we won't accidentally drop her into sulfuric acid."

"After I take you home I'll talk to my parents about it." He rose up his hands and went to mention it to Xion, but before he could tell her anything she buried her face into his navel and huffed out a soft noise. The cool wind picked up with a quiet whistle, and Roxas turned to look toward the woods for no other reason than to give the siblings some kind of privacy. When he did, he had to stop and gaze at something with a concentrated stare that made his skin prick and goose bumps scatter along his arms like a dropped pail of marbles. Roxas' lungs sharply expanded and refused to deflate, as he stood fixated on that particular spot.

Standing among the graying tree trunks was the boy, again. He'd forgotten about the brunette with his vacant skyline eyes, and the harrowing sense of being followed made Roxas rub his palms together. It was a hallucination. Axel had confirmed that so many times before, and the one time Roxas had tried to mention this person in full, the redhead had tensed up and told Roxas he needed to ignore it whenever he showed up. Axel had followed the advice with a tangent about psychosis that Roxas had hardly found it in him to pay attention to. How could he entirely ignore something that was completely real to him? The boy was there, and he was watching Roxas from afar, _always_. The idea made Roxas' stomach burn, and he blinked to make him go away, but this time he didn't move and Roxas rubbed at his temples, wanting to curl into his self like a sleepy larva.

He wasn't one to believe in things like ghosts, but maybe he was being haunted. The nature of the being that walked in time with his footsteps, went through various stages of decay, and appeared when he least needed him to was docile in appearance but clearly _waiting_. For _what_ was the actual question Roxas refused to even humor, because his mind was imaginative in terms of personal demise. He didn't want to consider the possibility that this hallucination was some kind of subconsciously implemented countdown he refused to acknowledge as his own doing. There was no way. Dreams and things the mind created were always copies of previously seen faces, but Roxas knew he'd never seen someone so striking before in his young life.

"Xion wants to go back in and get some hot chocolate or something." Axel announced, snapping Roxas out of his private moment with himself.

Before he looked away, the being's knuckles whitened from his grip on the tree and he disappeared into the woods along the very path Roxas, Xion and Axel would have to take back to the house. Roxas didn't want to think on there being four people venturing through the woods and being the only person who know of the extra entity, but there was no way for him to announce that they weren't alone. Axel already went back and forth with attempting to gauge the level of Roxas' instability, and he didn't need him to find another reason to question their relationship. Even as 'just friends' untamed schizophrenia was a difficult thing for Roxas to imagine anyone wanting to cope with. He blocked out the idea of the chestnut haired boy and told Xion they could make the cocoa from scratch if she was feeling a real treat.

Roxas' breathing kicked up white smog as they headed back to the house. Glancing from side-to-side, seeking out the other person, Roxas fleetingly saw the boy's limbs among the brittle branches. Occasionally his blackened fingernails hugged a patch of bark, but it turned to dust and reappeared along another while they continued down the rocky trail. Xion had already relented her personal grief to return to her typical nymph-like self, but Roxas couldn't swallow down the building fear of hearing a pair of foreign steps that continued crunching leaves whenever Xion and Axel stopped to inspect a cluster of leaves or discuss why exactly pigments changed. Something about chlorophyll and light, and the most basic of biology Roxas had tested out of due to his AP Biology course. It'd only been two thirds of a year since he'd graduated, but it felt like a lifetime ago.

The entity hovered at the edge of the woods when the trio escaped. Not a word was uttered about it, and Roxas ran his fingers along the back of his neck as he stepped back inside with the other two. He wouldn't mention it to Axel or his little sister, but that night he didn't want to sleep alone. It was too bad since Roxas knew Axel was going to spend the night watching movies with his little sister, and he'd already claimed he was going to go home on his own for once. Roxas did have his own house even though he liked to pretend he didn't, and sometimes he was obligated into using it.

Before Roxas left that afternoon, after three bowls of chicken and dumplings and Axel's dad asking the adult mandated inquiries about his future, Axel stood on the front porch with him and they smoked their final cigarettes together with tired expressions.

"What do you think your mom's going to say about her kid being cremated?" Roxas casually kicked his boot against the side railing for movement. "That's a tall order."

"Cheaper but more emotionally taxing, I know." His eyes shifted toward the closed iron rod door where the sound of Fleetwood Mac's _Dreams_ was twittering. "The second I mention it she's going to feel obligated to go through with what Xion wants, but I don't know a mother who'd be able to comfortably let go of their child like that. Funerals are so fucking masochistic. Making kids touch the dead and kiss corpses goodbye."

"It's more of southern thing." Roxas wasn't sure why he'd added that. "Xion's not going to want to be remembered the way she'll look here in a few months. I think she's more scared than she lets off."

"Of course she is. She's a thirteen year old kid, but she's still tougher than I'd be." Axel took a drag and watched the neighbor a few acres down unload her groceries. "Are you going to be okay sleeping at your place tonight? I wasn't sure if Hayner was going to be home or not."

"I'll text and ask him and then let you know." Roxas leaned back on a single foot. "Either way, I'll be fine."

"What'd you say about your cousin and that beach house?" Axel prodded and Roxas' eyes brightened in remembrance. He mouthed a quick 'oh yeah,' and Axel chuckled. "Yeah, that thing."

"Naminé keeps trying to get me to come out to her place. It's literally right on the beach. Her deck is covered in sand and she lives on moscato and paint fumes. You two would probably get along." Roxas paused to rethink what he said. "I pretty much told you I thought a drunk painter would get along with you. She's not a drunk. She's just enthusiastic about simple living."

"My kind of person." Axel killed his cigarette in the Mason jar ashtray. "Keep me posted on that, then. I want to get Xion out to the beach within a couple of weeks. You know, before she gets too tired. Leave the key under your front door mat, alright? I'm might stop by and sleep with you."

At that, they chastely kissed one another before Roxas jingled the keys in his palm and headed toward his parked car with the fresh windows he'd had installed after the affectionately referred to 'Saïx Incident,' which half the time sounded as if they were discussing a Pentagon project. Axel hadn't mentioned Saïx's explanation for the bricks through his windows or auto theft, but Demyx still brought it up if he wanted to get a rise out of them. Usually by parting curtains and claiming he saw Saïx by Axel's KIA Soul. Roxas decided he needed to really rethink his friend making process, because his selectiveness was definitely on the low quality side.

Axel didn't stop by that night until almost four in the morning, and Roxas was glad because he needed to sit down and watch the two movies Axel had mentioned for the sake of introspection. Sitting by himself with a bag of Doritos on his lap and his headphones in, he drove through Velvet Goldmine with stare of complete confusion during the majority of what was basically a love story about David Bowie and Iggy Pop. As little sense he could make of it between the Maxwell Demon persona and love interest abandonment, Roxas didn't stop the film even when he was on the brink of pissing himself. He saw it through until the end only to retract once the credits started to roll because he remembered something incredibly specific from earlier that day.

" _I think after the three week marathon of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and trying to decide who was more like Brian Slade and Curt Wild it became ingrained in the both of us to just take on the image."_

Roxas was standing in the kitchen making coffee when Axel walked in with a bag of McDonalds and a six-pack of what looked to be root beer, and Roxas didn't mean to lack tact, but so was his entire existence.

"So, who was Curt Wild and who was Brian Slade?"

Caught off guard and looking sleep-deprived, Axel set down the greasy bag and scowled at the question. It wasn't a good time to be poking and prodding at Axel's past pertaining to his side dish of a boyfriend figure, but the movie hadn't given him closure and Saïx and Axel weren't even considering closure. Half the time Roxas wasn't sure who the 'other man' was supposed to be, but he had a feeling he was wedged deep into denial to think he wasn't just the fun creeping up the wall during Axel's anticipation for Saïx to love him again.

"I guess when we were kids we—" Axel cut himself off, brought his head back as if he'd been offended by something, and then laughed as he tugged out a hash brown and bit into it with a defining crunch. "I don't remember, actually. Doesn't really concern you anyway, right?"


	16. Marooner's Rock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a bit of detailed sexual content.

There were a lot of things Axel could've said to Roxas that night that would've totaled him like a car crash, but that backhanded expression of forced disregard was the ultimate comment of disrepair. Roxas knew that, when he'd decided to continue his 'relationship' with Axel, he would have to be cautious and understanding because the man's life had been hard, but in hindsight, so had his even if it wasn't an extension of direct poverty and state housing. The classist shove off he felt he gave himself over and over again was starting to make his stomach acid cling to his gut's lining like December tree sap. Tired wasn't the word anymore, and he didn't know why he hung onto someone who was so underlying with his caustic behavior. Axel had begged him to stay, but then he acted as if Roxas' presence in his life was inconsequential at best.

"Roxas." Axel apparently noticed something was wrong, rethought what he'd just said, and then stared at the other as if he'd been doused in arctic waters. "Don't look at me like that. It's late or early, even. I don't want to talk about him or what I was like as a kid. I spent all night arguing with my parents about Xion."

"I don't care." Roxas' words fell distantly. He heard them bomb cities, ruin lives and wipe away vegetation. "That's just how you are, _right_?"

The stare off that ensued could've killed off a small country, and Axel rolled his lips, rubbed them together as if he were forming potential words and then looked to the side with his palm rubbing at his jaw. For the longest of time, neither of them could speak to one another, but Roxas okay-ed the circumstances when he reached for the breakfast sandwich Axel had bought him on a whim. It was a nice thought. Roxas knew, on some mangled level, Axel cared about him and there was something. Again, with the 'something.' Over and over again there was no definition for what they were, and Roxas didn't want that. He didn't want to start a new chapter of life out of the house and in university being worn out by _something_.

"What'd you parents say?" Roxas picked the cheese off the paper wrapper and reinserted it into his sandwich, knowing Axel was eating his guilt with every bite of his hash brown. Roxas wasn't typically malicious, but he was glad Axel felt bad. He wanted Axel to feel like trash for making him feel like the most unimportant part of his life. "Didn't go as smoothly as you thought it would, huh?"

"I never thought it'd go _smoothly_." He walked over to the fridge and found a bottle of water. "I just didn't expect my mom to start screaming at my dad for agreeing with me."

"She doesn't want Xion somewhere she can't find her." Roxas might've been dense in a lot of emotional respects, but it only made sense. Xion was her child. "That's not easy."

"And Xion wouldn't want to be trapped somewhere." Axel rubbed at his forehead, weight shifting onto a single foot, and he opened the bottle. Only when he stepped into the sink's overhead fluorescent light did Roxas notice Axel had been crying. His face had the puffed and tattered residue that came along with a sobbing fit. "She'll come around."

Whether or not that was true was yet to be seen. Before they crashed for the day, Roxas made a quick phone call. Naminé hadn't heard from Roxas in so long she sounded relieved, because apparently word from his mother was unsurprisingly vague. Roxas knew his gossipy incubator hadn't been ambiguous on purpose. He never came home, and when he did, it was for one of those awkward dinners where he discussed solely school work, potential internships in the coming years and heard his dad drop the words 'Ivy League' in terms of graduate school so many times it nearly gave him busted hemorrhoids. That's exactly how he liked to see it. His parents made him need prescribed hemorrhoid cream and flushable wet wipes.

"I've got a couple people I think you should meet."

Roxas explained the situation to his cousin while Axel tugged off his shirt and headed into the bathroom to scrub his face down. Roxas' roommate was an early riser by nature, and Axel and he had passed one another while he and Roxas were heading up stairs and Hayner was walking down for his predictable six egg whites, Bear Claw granola and 20 oz. of coffee. Roxas didn't want to know how it looked having Axel over at that time of morning. He knew there was homoerotic tension between Axel and him that was readable by even the densest of people, and if anyone knew how to sniff it out, then it was going to be Hayner. Roxas wasn't sure why he had to be afraid of his roommate. They were supposed to be best friends in theory, but whenever he was in need of an outlet, he found himself calling up Pence instead. In fact, just a few days beforehand, while having lunch at Pence's mom's restaurant, which she owned in name only, he'd attempted to bring it up.

"He's like his dad," Pence explained over chicken and waffles that looked considerably more appetizing than Roxas' spinach salad. "Hayner's possessive, but he hides it under the guise of the ultimate good guy. What're you going to do? Get marriage counseling with your best friend? Maybe it's time to cut some ties. You can afford to break the lease, and if you told your old man he was distracting you from your studies, then you'd be out in five seconds. Perfect plan."

"But we're _all_ best friends." Roxas pointed his fork at Pence. "The four of us have spent four years being close."

"I mean, it's cool you feel that way, but _come on_." Pence pushed a chunk of his waffle onto Roxas' plate and quirked an eyebrow. "I never talk to Hayner, and the last time I saw Olette she confessed her love to me and ran off to London with her friends. You live with Hayner, but you don't talk to him either, and Olette said she hadn't seen you since you pretty much told her to fuck herself by your pool. We're the only ones who talk anymore, and you're seeing that guy and his friends, right? Be fair to yourself. Let high school go."

"I'm not holding onto it. I didn't _like_ high school."

"No one actually _likes_ high school, but they do miss having to think less." Pence motioned at his glass for another beer and then leaned back. "First real boyfriend, first semester of freshman year, first year away from momma; this is a hard time for all of us, and clinging to what was once upon a time isn't going to make it easier."

That entire conversation was why Roxas was no longer attempting to pacify Hayner, and when Axel walked back into the bedroom looking like he'd been mowed over, Roxas told Naminé he loved her and hung up with his own tired groan. His phone landed on a pile of dirty clothes, and he made a mental note not to step on it in the morning.

"She said we could bring Xion by next weekend if we wanted. It's cold out there, but she could collect seashells and check out the tide pools or something."

"Sounds like her dream," Axel stated, throwing himself down onto the bed beside Roxas. He assumed a modeling pose and Roxas pushed at his chest. "Are you tired yet?"

"I feel like someone punched my brain and now it's a deflated soufflé."

Axel smoothed his hands along the bed's surface before dropping his chin onto the nearest pillow. The sheets hadn't been changed in God only knew how long, but Axel didn't mind the stale scent or suspicious stains. One of his smoothing hands drifted over toward Roxas, playfully hesitant so that Roxas would catch onto the movement, before snatching up the blond and bringing him close. Roxas stared up at the ceiling fan for a moment only to reach behind his head for the remote that would turn off the light.

"What're you doing tomorrow?" Axel's hand was contemplatively placed on Roxas' hip, and he knew that gesture enough to see the invitation. "Or this afternoon."

The sun was rising, but Roxas had shut the blinds upon walking into the bedroom. The semi-darkness surrounding them both was more or less a navy blue in contrast to the preferred deep-set blackness, and Roxas closed his eyes for a moment only to note the familiar slide of Axel's hand dragging across his bare navel. Tonight he wanted to be mad at Axel for his shortness, his insufferable sense of entitlement to his own feelings when Roxas had poured so many of his out, and the laundry list of other annoyances, but on the other hand, there was the option to feel good. The only thing Axel had ever been consistent with was making Roxas come first, and he knew that was sad. That was the story of their life, though. He couldn't pretend it wasn't the major theme between them.

"What're you looking for?" Roxas murmured through a sleep-heavy fog.

In response, Axel smoothed his hand directly between Roxas' thighs and cupped hard enough to make him surge beneath the palmed pressure. Turning his head, he knew Hayner was going to hear every creak and damp breath that rattled free from his chest. Axel understood how to make Roxas sputter out embarrassing profanity and simultaneously pray to the Holy Ghost for forgiveness, because he was the sinner Axel boiled alive. There was no mistaking how much of their relationship was built on twenty minute sessions of skin accumulating sweat and one of them pleading for a pace change.

" _You_ ," Axel finally replied.

"God, you're a lamer," Roxas breathed out through puffy exhales, his legs spreading more so Axel could slide his hand further back. "Like, _really_ lame."

"Says the person who just called me a _lamer_."

Axel's charcoal voice with the lights off was enough to make Roxas' body contemplate a lot of things, and he hated that sex was a hair-trigger response. He could think of worse problems, though. Shifting his hips down, Roxas began to roll them at an even tempo, grinding to show Axel he was more than willing to end up on his back for the night.

"That's right. Talk dirty to me, Roxas. Call me _lame_ , again. Fuck, your mouth is so fucking filthy I can't wait to make you gag on those nasty words."

There was a split-second stare off that probably quickened continental drift before Axel dissolved into a wicked cackle and Roxas groaned in disgust, his hips collapsing onto the mattress and Axel's hand dropping onto the other's thigh. Roxas shoved him toward the edge of the mattress, almost pushing him onto the hardwood flooring.

"Get out of my bed _forever._ "

"Roxas, be reasonable!" Axel was still choking on his laughter, one comedic insert away from needing life support. "You called me _lame_."

Suddenly, Roxas flashed him an honest smile that showed all of his brilliant teeth, and the pushes transformed into hard tugs that gave Axel the right idea. He clamored on top of Roxas who entangled his fingers into Axel's hair so they could solidly kiss one another with hot breaths and the kind of collision that melted the interior of his lower abdomen. In a flash, Roxas' thigh was firmly grasped until Axel's thumbprint threatened to be left behind, and they melded together with grabbing fingers and desperate holding.

The kisses trickled downward toward Roxas' collarbones, and though Roxas' breathing peaked as lips sucked and speckled his throat with eventual purple dots, he was still tired beyond keeping his eyes open. He pushed the pads of his fingers along the back of Axel's neck and wrapped his legs around the other's hips that were sharper than crushed Christmas ornaments. The sudden grinding forced goose bumps to pepper is skin, and he tugged up Axel's shirt to give him the general idea of what he wanted only to then grab at the drawstring of the redhead's ball shorts until Axel could shove them down to his knees.

"Fuck me," Roxas murmured, pleading out the demand as the grinding escalated until his bed groaned. He used to be a church mouse when they started out their affair, but he was getting older. Roxas cared less, wanted more and knew how to cater to Axel after months of them 'experimenting.' "You're already hard for me. Come on. Please, Axel. "

He emphasized on his prayerful whispering by stroking Axel's hard on through his boxers and simultaneously kissing the older man with his tongue swiping along in heated strokes that curved up and down like tired waves. Roxas sought out the box of condoms in the bedside table drawer with blind hands, trying to kiss, caress and seek in a single moment and failing. It was Axel who finally snagged the foil and bottle of lube from the drawer, but he dropped them to the side for later.

In his own backward way, Roxas kept trying to seek Axel out in the mornings when the world was too tired to judge him for being voracious. Fortunately, he tuned out his own subconscious processes and drifted into a drunken state of mindlessness where he lifted his hips when instructed to 'take it off' and restlessly stroked himself as he sleepily watched Axel remove his hooded sweatshirt with impatient pulls. The bend of Roxas' knees draped over the siding of Axel's upper-thighs and the tips of his toes pointed downward toward the stained bedding they were rarely subjected to. Coyly smiling, Axel tugged him closer only to let the building swells between them collide with a joint roll of their hips.

"You're my best friend."

Axel's words were damp against Roxas' lips. The blond's chest peeled back and that painful crick made his muscles twitch, but he let himself go and finally handed the bottle of lube to Axel. There was something else entirely he wanted to tell Axel, but their recent disconnects made it impossible. Was 'best friend' even what he wanted to hear? The right connotation was there, technically. But it wasn't enough. Roxas realized he was as greedy as his parents had raised him to be, because he wanted an 'I love you.' Not that he could bring himself to say it first most days, but the truth ate through his marrow like termites. There were always colonies of regret and disdain whenever they fucked.

" _Oh, God_." Roxas' knees shifted when Axel ruthlessly pushed two generously slickened fingers inside of him, and his entire body contracted with a shiver. He wished the bedroom was pitch black and dawn would go away. Right then he had to see everything. From the flexing tendons in Axel's working wrist to the way his scabbed up knees rose like small hills, Roxas was agonizing over the minor details between them. It was always the minor things and never the big picture for reasons unknown. "We _have_ to be quiet."

When it was Axel's house it didn't matter. The amount of times he'd heard Demyx and Xigbar mockingly reproducing sounds better fit for the Evil Dead remake was lost to him. And there was even a time when Xigbar threw open Axel's door and asked Roxas to stop 'pig squealing' because sometimes people liked to study without their headphones in. Roxas had gestured at Axel, asked if he really sounded like a piglet and Axel confirmed that, yes, he did.

Silence mattered in Roxas' house, which was a turn off for Axel even though he knew what the conditions were with Roxas and his bedroom. He made a point to make the experience miserable for Roxas, though. With his fingers tightly gripping the backs of Roxas' knees and then pointedly changing their position so that Roxas was on top and couldn't suffocate his sounds with pillowcases coated in Dorito dust and masturbatory success, Roxas let him. He let him because in the back of his mind he knew he wanted Hayner to know that there was officially someone he had to go through in order to root back into his spine. He wasn't entirely the snail to Hayner's green-banded broodsac, and Axel fucked the concept out of him until he caved and breathed out hard grunts.

" _Fuck_ ," Axel breathed out the single curse as Roxas lowered himself onto the weeping head of his cock. The amount of lube they'd used left Roxas' hand sticky, but he figured there could never be too much. " _Roxas_..."

They finished quicker than normal. Roxas hit the mattress with a dead thud and Axel was already smoking a clove when Roxas reached for the mangled blankets. It was was half-past six in the morning when Roxas lazily turned his head toward the door in post-coital numbness and spotted something off about his door. The usual triple stream of light that drifted in through the bedroom door's cracks was askew and Roxas' gaze slated into an uncertain stare as he pushed himself onto an elbow. He had to be seeing things, but even with that self-reassurance, there was still something blocking half of the crack beneath the door. He sat up, stared at the shadows and then inhaled when the blockage strode away toward the other end of the hallway; toward Hayner's bedroom.

Noticing something was wrong; Axel leaned over Roxas' side and handed off his clove. "What's wrong? You sound like you're having an asthma attack."

Roxas threw himself onto his back and acted as if he hadn't seen anything at all. "Nothing. I think my eyes are about to burn out of my skull, though."

He grinned and petted through Roxas' hair that was like downy feathers. "Well don't lose those pretty eyes of yours. God only knows what I'd do."

From there, the bedroom walls came tumbling down on Roxas, and when he woke up again, he was loading heavy luggage into the back of Axel's KIA a week later. It'd been a handful of icy nights before he came to the realization he was lying out on his own self-made chopping block and the butchers were cleaving him into valuable cuts. The ghosts were whispering through the hallway that connected his ears, and he wished they would go through one and out the other like everything else. The days of not caring seemed so far away from where he currently was, and he wondered why he even had to care.

Xion appeared from behind Axel as they strode toward the car with heavy steps that somehow fell into time. With a ruddy face and scrunched nose, she was bundled up and frustrated from the lecture her mother had given the both of them and a scarf's edges were balled up into her tiny fists. There was a tired manila folder in Axel's hand with instructions for Xion's care and a bag of prescriptions in the other. Neither of them looked enchanted by whatever confrontation had happened a handful of minutes beforehand, but he knew better than to ask. He hardly needed to.

"Do you have everything?" Roxas asked, digging into Axel's jacket pocket for the keys. "Are we going to have to hitch the family bomb shelter to the car and take it with us?"

Axel handed a folder off to Roxas and snatched up the keys with a harsh swipe only to smile. "Read through this while _I'm_ driving. It's important."

Flipping through the pages of instructional material handwritten by Axel's mother, Roxas strode toward the passenger side and flopped down only for Axel to turn the ignition and blast what was unmistakably Santana featuring Michelle Branch. The song derived from somewhere in the early 2000s when Roxas was a poignant sixth grader and Axel was more than likely painting the town red as a high school freshman with zero fashion taste. Before words could be exchanged and Axel could react, Roxas leaned forward and pointedly turned the volume up even higher, glad Xion was oblivious to her older brother and his part-time boyfriend. As soon as she'd climbed into the backseat she'd tugged out her DS and ventured into her own solitude, which Axel promised was typical of her.

"Anytime we get into the car I expect something like the New York Dolls or Iggy Pop and then you're listening to late 90s to early 2000s pop. I'm not complaining, but lately you're really letting me down here with expectations, Diamond."

"Roxas, I'm wearing black skinny jeans and a V-neck from three years ago. I don't know where these ideations are coming from, but you're off target." He lit up a clove and Xion's grunts of disapproval continued until he rolled the window down. "What do you want to listen to? I've got nothing right now, to be honest."

He grabbed Axel's iPhone and unlocked the screen with the thoughtless 7-6-9-3 only to pause for a split-second and process what exactly those numbers meant. He was subpar when it came to critical thinking, but for whatever reason—maybe the car's curving motion had drifted the proper flow of brain matter—he'd caught onto the number's pattern.

7 – R  
6 – O  
9 – X  
3 – E

Staring at his revelation as if the planets had aligned to confirm a tribal calendar's prediction for the universe's absolute meltdown, Roxas had typed that pattern in for weeks on end without once asking Axel why he had thought to use them. Mostly because Axel thought a lot. It was hardly Roxas' fault for not wanting to listen to numeric cognitive for five hours straight when they could be doing anything else.

Tugging out his phone, Roxas quietly readjusted his lock screen to 2, 9, 3 and 5. When all was balanced between them, he pressed the back of his head against the headrest and quietly picked something nostalgic he could mouth along to as the GPS obnoxiously directed them toward Naminé's beach house. He liked to think there would be something cleansing about sucking down briny fumes and eating her well-balanced meals, but there was so much riding on the next few months. How they handled Xion from then on made the difference of their hypothetical escape.

"We should make a get away playlist," Axel announced after a dragging silence. Sometimes Xion would make a frustrated hiccup at her handheld, but other than that, they were submerged in a conversation-less fog. "Songs about getting away."

"Is it bad the first two songs I thought of were both by A Flock of Seagulls and Journey?" Roxas shook his head at himself as Axel's burnt cackle ricocheted around the car. "Stop laughing. _I'm serious._ I don't know anything half as inspiring as Don't Stop Believin'."

"I'll remember _not_ to let you make the playlist for us."

"I have good taste in music."

Which was a lie. Roxas listened to whatever came on his satellite radio. It wasn't so much bad taste as much as it was _no_ taste. He wasn't sure what he liked, but there were some bands Axel scrolled through and suggested that resonated with him. That's what his taste was, he guessed, but he hadn't dedicated enough time to build his iTunes around whatever those bands were. He knew he secretly thought some of David Bowie's music was overrated, but he wouldn't say that, because Axel had long since laid claim on that untouchable topic. There were maybe three songs he really liked, and Roxas wondered if everyone else in the world was only pretending to like him because he was a major icon.

"Sing me a song," Axel suggested. "Fuck my iTunes. I haven't updated that since I've known you. Just sing for me."

Roxas' face prickled with heat. "That's out of the question."

"You know those ridiculous boy bands with the codpieces and whatever?" Roxas' revolted expression suggested he'd never heard of such boy bands. " _Whatever_. Those bands where they look as if their faces have been surgically altered to resemble the cherubs in the Sistine Chapel? Kind like the Apostolic Palace gave birth to them while crying tears of Virgin blood and wiping up the afterbirth with Holy Water soaked tea clothes?"

"I'm glad your sister can't understand you right now."

Axel brushed that off. "But do you know what I mean?"

"Are you trying to tell me N'Sync is holy to you?"

"Roxas," and he blew a raspberry. "I'm saying you could've been in a boy band."

Finally, that compliment sank in and Roxas' nose crinkled, but he was smiling. "What blasphemous way to call me beautiful."

Axel beamed when Roxas finally understood the long-winded praise. "You're going to sing for me at some point. Don't think I'll let you weasel out of it."

"Not on your life," Roxas murmured.

Naminé was in the middle of stirring her well-loved white chili for the four of them when the KIA pulled into the sandy driveway. While scratching one of his trimmed sideburns, Axel whistled when he managed a good look at the small home. Evidently, for Axel, it wasn't all that small and Xion had unbuckled herself and tossed her tiny frame between the driver and front passenger seat with wide eyes. She repositioned her wig, patted the side of Axel's face and then excitedly pointed at the ocean before turning to Roxas who was smiling.

"We're never going to keep her inside," Roxas said, pushing open his door and tugging Xion out after him. She was small enough that he could seamlessly swing her around so that she rode piggyback. "We can get our bags later, yeah?"

Axel nodded, finishing his last cigarette for what would be quite a while, and killed it in the car's ashtray. "Might as well introduce me to the family."

That last sentence made Roxas stop in his tracks. He hadn't considered Axel meeting his family before, and the wave of uncertainty that followed forced him to swallow down a tar-like lump that burned his chest. There was nothing he could do about it right then. Naminé was opening the front door, there was chimney smoke whispering to the overcast, and they were all three there in front of someone more important to him than his own mother. Her approval was everything.

While Naminé and Axel went through the most casual of introductions, Roxas was lost in his own state of cautious surrealism. Xion obviously took right to Naminé, which didn't shock Roxas for a minute. He'd told Naminé to brush up on sign language before they came over, and she'd been practicing nonstop. Naminé was already excelling in the faintest bits of conversation, and Xion was rambling as quickly as possible while Axel effortlessly translated everything Naminé couldn't understand. Roxas would've helped, but Xion was still on his back and the flying hands in his peripheral vision were distracting.

"She wants to walk along the beach," Axel's words carried a smile even if his expression was mostly a lopsided smirk. His aloofness was a mask to contain any potential awkwardness. Roxas had caught onto his method months ago, but he knew Naminé was seeking out a harsh read of him. Then wasn't the time for Axel to be ambiguous. "I don't think thirteen-year-olds like her are meant to be that still for so long. Ever since she left the hospital she's been running as many marathons as possible."

This was only somewhat true. Xion's body was growing weaker with every passing day. Sometimes there were spurts of pure energy, and Roxas believed she'd send the diagnosis running, but that wasn't how terminal illness worked. Her aches were there, the discomfort was real, and during the drive he'd scanned through all of the information Axel's mother had painstakingly gathered for them to use as references. None of the information came with instructions for a miracle, because miracles didn't happen. At least, not in this case. Xion's days were numbered no matter how often Roxas pretended they weren't.

"There are windows all over the back of the house. If she wants to go ahead of you guys while you settle in, then we could keep a pretty close eye on her."

Naminé led the way inside and Axel asked Xion if she thought it was a good idea. Before Axel could finish, she wriggled her way off Roxas' back and thanked Naminé as she charged toward the back door. Xion didn't make it off the back deck before she stopped in mid-step to take in the massiveness that was the ocean front. The winter season was violently churning water through angry froth, and he figured it was pretty overwhelming for someone her size and with her kind of broad mindset.

"Does she know about—" Naminé motioned between Axel and Roxas, raising an eyebrow and half-laughing at her own discretion. "I don't want to spill something."

Axel's gaze tore away from the window. "Oh, you mean, does she know we're…"

"Whatever we are," Roxas finished.

"No?" Axel uncertainly pursed his lips and side-eyed the wall.

"If she does, then she hasn't said anything."

Naminé caught wind of the peculiar status of their relationship, and she pointed at Roxas and then pointed Axel with an accusing squint. Axel raised both hands in defeat, but Roxas challenged her with a lifted eyebrow and pointed stare. This exchange lasted a matter of thirty seconds before she rolled her bony shoulders back and clicked her tongue.

"Kids these days."

"Oh, come _on_ , Naminé." Roxas trekked after her into the kitchen and Axel followed suit. "Don't be weird about it."

"I'm not the one being weird about anything." She reached for the bottle of chardonnay and began the struggle of uncorking it. "You two go ahead and do your own thing. I'm not going to ask any questions except the one your mother's _making_ me ask."

Roxas' fingers lost heat. "Mom knows we're here?"

"Don't worry. She's only asking you to come to the Christmas party this year and bring your _friend_ she's heard so much about."

There it was. The all-condemning double connotation whammy that any and every same sex coupling dreaded hearing from a parent. As if plucked from the Tree of Scorn, that single word was the bite of fruit that gave people diarrhea inducing food poisoning. ' _Friend,'_ his mother had said. Sure, they were _friends._ If the new definition of friendship included a lubed up reach around on the kitchen floor at three in the morning while the roommates slept in the living room twenty feet away, then yes. They were best _friends_. The kind of best _friends_ that stayed up all night, making each other sweat and hoarsely breathing out 'you're the best' until someone finally groaned and released _friendship_ juice into latex.

Axel grinned. " _Friends_ , Roxas?"

He'd been thinking the exact same thing.

"Don't even say it." Roxas blankly stared at his cousin, needing a drink more than ever. "Don't give Naminé a reason take a bleach dip tonight."

"I didn't know friends liked to—"

Roxas cut him off. "I need an entire bottle of wine! I'm so damn thirsty! Namine, let me _help_ you with uncorking that! And while you're at it, how about you give Axel something to do that requires stuffing his mouth so full he cannot make out a _single_ word!"

Axel was laughing again. "I was only trying to contribute to the conversation."

From the window, Roxas spotted Xion leaned over, collecting seashells. Each one she washed off in the shallowest part of the shoreline she could reach, careful not to get her feet wet. It was chilly out, but Xion was evidently over dressed with her turquoise gloves and toboggan, but it was to keep her from becoming sicker than she already was. The last thing she needed right then was some kind of fever or pneumonia to speed up the end.

"Kids are kind of cute in that free-roaming-nature-exhibit kind of way," Axel said lightly as he took his glass of wine with a short 'thank you.'

Roxas stared at the other end of the beach because something had captured his attention. Lingering along the darkened tide pools, which Xion apparently refused to explore without them, sat another person. He was settled on the rock, poorly dressed for the weather and hadn't once acknowledged Xion's wandering. Instead, his brown hair grew messier as the wind tousled it without mercy. His skin was tanned, and he seemed warm even from a distance. The boy embodied summertime in the midst of the frosty oncoming winter months, and Roxas stepped closer to the windows while Naminé and Axel discussed their terrible decisions regarding their majors and career paths.

"Had I been smart, then I would've prepared myself for medical school."

"You would've been miserable, though."

"I try telling Roxas he should do what makes him happy, but he's pretty set on that Biology major. At least he'll have money of his own someday."

The blond's fingers reached out for the streak-free glass and the brunet finally looked over his shoulder with a healthy smile that made Roxas' heart reverberate. Xion glanced toward the boy as if to finally acknowledge his existence, but as soon as she did, Roxas blinked and the figure on the rocks was no longer there. Xion was alone on the beach, acting as if she hadn't seen a thing, and Roxas couldn't breathe.

"I can put this chili on low and we can all go outside with her."

Roxas nodded. "Where's the fine china?"

He meant the Solo cups, which was what all three of them transferred their wine into before stepping outside to join Xion.


	17. Stage Play

The afterthought of bedsprings creaking beneath Roxas' shoulder blades was how the morning started. Roxas didn't mind Axel sneaking a quickie in before Xion and his cousin woke up, but he was distracted throughout the duration of the motions. Naturally, he moaned, twisted his fingers into Axel's hair and dug his heels into his lower back with muffled keening, but his head was ridden with intrusive thoughts. Axel could've blown him until the planets aligned and Roxas still would've been dwelling on the fact that, three rooms down from them, a girl was dying, and there was nothing either of them could do about it. Praying wasn't going to stop her deterioration, and while she was rotting from the inside out, he was sucking the life and cum out of the same girl's brother because  _he_  needed someone.

Their mouths reconnected after a stint of hushed panting, but the kiss was interrupted when Axel chuckled at Roxas' ankles being level with his ears. The pair pulled back and inspected how far down his legs had been pushed. Roxas' head turned from left to right, his eyes wide from surprise, while Axel retracted enough to take in the big picture. The heavenly one of the two grinned, thoughtlessly licked at the sweat that'd accumulated along his upper-lip, and laughed again.

"Either this is a hidden talent or we've been working you up to this for  _months_."

"Shut up..." Roxas opened his mouth to continue with a wiseass remark, but Axel rocked forward with all of his weight; a trick Roxas had complained about more than once since it hurt more than anything. This forced Roxas' toes to curl and a pained laugh to scrape from his throat like a defeated whine. He'd felt that stretch throughout his entire body. "Fuck you, Axel."

"It's too early for you to be mean to me like this."

"Fuck you," Roxas repeated. His smile lapsed in and out of contorted expressions he might've been embarrassed about four months before. Roxas reached for the pillow he'd pushed above his head when Axel had initially told him to 'spread it.' He held tight with both of his hands and was aware of how fast his chest was falling and rising. "Fuck you… Fuck…"

"… _you_?" Axel finished. His tone had returned to a husky lull.

Roxas blindly clasped onto Axel's biceps. "… _me_."

* * *

 It was seven in the morning when they rolled out of bed and stumbled into the stark white en suite decorated with sparse tiles with etched in pale blue seashells. Roxas stood beneath the shower's spray alongside Axel and was exhausted by the post-coital nap. He only regretted it until Axel hooked his arms beneath the bend of his knees and gave him another reason to scrape blood to the surface of his back and pray to God. The intrusive thoughts didn't stop that time either, but Roxas didn't think about Xion. Instead, he thought about being in love and what it meant when you loved someone enough to understand why Anna Karenina might've thrown herself onto the train tracks.

" _If you look for perfection, you'll never be content."  
_

Showered and almost certain he didn't want to move for the rest of the day, Roxas eventually sprawled out on the bed with a lidded stare. He watched Axel go through his meticulous method of picking clothes, noted the turkey sausage vapors in the air and smoothed his fingers beneath one of the pillows only to grip down until his knuckles whitened. He needed coffee, and maybe some Adderall, but he mostly wanted to selfishly sleep with Axel all day. This trip was about Xion, though. She was what mattered and took precedence, which was why, after Axel stole his towel and tossed a pair of dirty boxers on his face, Roxas rolled off the mattress and got dressed.

"Do you think we fuck too much?" Roxas asked, paying close attention to the small of Axel's back where a downy layer of hair appeared when in direct light. He recalled licking that very spot the weekend before. "Maybe it's a problem we should address?"

"Roxas, it's too early for you to point out our problematic behavior."

"We did it, like, three times."

"We're also in our twenties." He yanked a sweatshirt over his head and pulled his red hair into a messy bun without bothering with the mirror next to him. The black cotton headband was next. "If I wanna beat your hole raw until the rapture comes, then by God, I'm gonna beat your hole until we ascend."

"Have you ever been to church?"

"I need coffee, Roxas."

In the kitchen, Xion was writing a million miles per hour in her notebook with a muffin bigger than her fist to her left and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice to her right. This was apparently her preliminary breakfast. Naminé was in full kitchen mode with a coffee mug in one hand and a spatula in the other, babysitting the sausage and pancakes while humming along to Fleetwood Mac. She didn't notice them walking in until Xion dropped her pen with a clatter.

The exuberant 'good morning' signing from both Axel and Roxas was synchronized, and Xion laughed at them.

" _You slept in_ , " Xion said. " _I was about to check on you two_."

Roxas nervously laughed. " _We were up late talking_."

The thought of Xion walking in on them while making the beast with two backs caused Roxas to grimace, but Axel snorted. Naminé turned toward them, pointed at the coffee pot directly beside her, and then gave them a knowing look that made Axel clear his throat as he strode forward to make both Roxas and himself cups. Axel ran his fingers along the back of his neck and slowly exhaled because he was standing directly beside Naminé who was giving him an unabashed glare.

"You like my cousin a lot, don't you?"

Roxas changed the subject. "What're we doing today?"

Axel whacked the packets of Splenda against his palm. "Whatever Xion wants to do."

More than anything, Xion wanted the beach, and that's where the four of them lingered for most of the weekend. There was a coastal village within a walk's distance from Naminé's house, and when Xion wanted ice cream, they abandoned whatever they were doing to appease her sweet tooth. Upon discovering a certain salty and sweet ice cream bar, she'd become manic about the treat, requesting it three times in one day until Axel had to casually remind her that they were going to eat dinner at some point, and it'd be rude to be full of ice cream before then. Xion casually displaying her 'WINNER' stick, which awarded her another free bar of ice cream, had interrupted his lecturing. A defeated Axel, and inherently pushover of a brother, had gently grabbed her shoulder and asked Roxas if he wanted another bar before guiding her to the ice cream cart  _again_.

They returned, but Xion ran straight for the pile of seashells she'd been collecting earlier. Naminé had disappeared to make more coffee and grab the rest of the muffins from that morning, leaving Roxas alone with nothing but his head and the soothing of the ocean.

"She talked about you the entire way there and back," Axel told Roxas who was lounging out on the blanket with a thermos of coffee. "You're her favorite person on earth."

"Stop it," Roxas muttered with a repressed laugh. "You're her favorite person. She's got a crush on me, and that's it."

"And you'll probably be her last one."

They made eye contact, and Roxas covered his face with an arm. "Don't break my heart."

"If it isn't already broken, then you're not paying attention."

Axel took a seat beside Roxas and handed him the ice cream bar with an unaffected look, but he knew better, and he liked to think Axel knew that he knew better than to trust his facade. Roxas pushed himself up, ice cream hovering in front of his lips, and together they watched as Xion ran against the waves, not fearing the bitter coldness of the vast, impossible ocean.

* * *

He'd tried to get out of the Christmas party. Roxas had tried to the point of actually deep breathing the air of every violently ill person brave enough to go to class during finals, even sneaking a drink from a girl's Monster who'd claimed she'd spent the night before projectile vomiting, only to find out she'd puked because she'd been drunk. Nothing worked. The weekend prior to the weekend of the party Roxas had lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, cursing his immune system for his nearly impeccable health, which made no sense considering he hardly took care of himself. The only thing that could've seconded him being ill the day of the party would've been Axel coming down with the flu, but he was so mockingly excited about attending the party Roxas was almost certain he'd quarantined himself solely to make sure he  _could_  go. He hadn't seen him in days.

"You have to bring Axel," Naminé reminded him. They were shopping for something to wear to the party but had spent most of the day eating sushi and discussing Xion. "If you don't, then I'll hear it. Your mother is scandalized, but she's curious enough to risk seeing your dad lose his mind over it."

The party was semi-formal, but Roxas would've been taken out back and shot like a lame horse if he didn't make a point to look better than the rest. He was his mother's prize, and nothing in life had been free for him since he'd left the womb. He'd been paying on that rent since day one.

"I'd call her selfish, but that'd imply I'm surprised she'd stick me against Dad solely to sate her shitty curiosity." Roxas raised a Ralph Lauren V-neck piece that looked exactly like the same one he wore every year, and basically, everyday. "I'd like to think I'm endearingly predictable."

"You lost that title the second you had the gall to let cherry top do the dirty with you in my guest bedroom." Roxas' shock was followed by a faintly sadistic, edgy laugh. He dared to look confused. "You didn't think I knew? People in China knew what you two were up to. It was mortifying for me to hear that coming from you of all people.  _My_  baby cousin letting some man - "

"I figured you knew, but it's fucked up hearing you say it."

"What's fucked up…" She paused to make a face at herself for swearing in public. "What's fucked up is how good looking that man is. Where did you find him? Is that what you make in biology class nowadays? You know what? Don't tell me. I'm already upset I have an art degree."

"On a bridge." Roxas pulled  _another_  black sweater. "I think I like this one."

"Is that an innuendo for something? You young children and your hip new slang."

"We literally met on a bridge." Even though it hadn't been, Roxas felt like that was years ago. "Has Mom said anything about Dad knowing?"

"Of course he doesn't know," Naminé pulled a maroon sweater from the rack. "This says Christmas but without being too kitschy, and it's not  _black_."

"Black is classic, Naminé."

"Black is for  _funerals_ , Roxas."

* * *

 Because his mother had probably slaughtered a child to ensure it would happen, it snowed the day of the party. Roxas and Axel went together in the Mercedes, both dressed in everything black except their maroon and gray sweaters. Roxas was being sullen while Axel obnoxiously sang along to the Christmas carols he'd located on Roxas' XM radio, and he was too enthusiastic about the implications of the immediate future. Roxas tried to change the station twice until Axel finally started serenading him, causing him to smile and not so reluctantly give up his end of the fight.

They were thirty minutes late by design. Roxas pulled into the private garage and took a moment to stare straight ahead so that he could think through every escape route available to him and Axel. It wasn't a matter of  _if_  they'd need them. It was  _when_. He knew exactly how his dad liked to handle socially strenuous situations. The man was rich enough, powerful enough, and narcissistic enough to not give a damn if he made a scene; and multiple times in the past Roxas had hung his head in humiliation while he screamed at a waiter who'd left fingerprints on a water glass.

"Looking awfully pale there." Axel opened the door, signaling for Roxas to kill the ignition. "We won't stay long. You're already hating this, I know."

"Mom's expecting us to stay the night." He clenched his lanyard. "She might take the keys."

"Well," Axel opened the door for Roxas, "then we just won't let her."

"It's not that simple."

"No. Nothing is ever that simple with you. Is it?"

The party was lavish in a way that screamed 'new money.' While his dad technically wasn't new money, his mother was, and that'd established an over the top flare to every family function she produced. Roxas noted how, after pushing through the dense crowd and through swung open double doors, there weren't two but three fifteen-foot Christmas trees strategically placed in a way that reminded Roxas of a satanic ritual. The ballroom was a glittering bedlam of silver tinsel, trembling champagne towers, and an atmospheric blue lighting cast along the white tapestries that'd been hung to reinforce the Winter Wonderland theme. Roxas eyed the circular tables piled high with hors d'oeuvres. It was an internal battle not to walk up to the table, stuff every piece of shrimp down his gullet and then excuse himself to finger his throat until he vomited enough to warrant going upstairs for the rest of the night. His groin burned at the thought.

Pretentious muttering about business Roxas had never indulged in intermingled with that archaic Christmas music. Roxas' father had once begged him to consider a business degree, and to this day, he wasn't sure why a parent would be upset about their child pursuing biology. He had a hunch it was because he wasn't interested in dipping his toes into the CEO legacy of the Eames lineage, but it was hard to process the monarchal leverage capitalism really fed his family. Sometimes, even though he hated to admit it, some of Axel's infuriated rambling about his world was a little too right. To everyone there, he was a prince. He was the heir to an empire that would continue to forsake the working class gyre minus the antiquated romanticism.

Axel leaned over to whisper in Roxas' ear when he spotted the crystal centerpieces' vases full of snowflakes and floating candles. Shooting from the tops were dead branches sprayed with foam and hanging crystal ornaments. "This is  _ridiculous_. A gross display of wealth and self-indulgence."

"Are you amused or angry?" Roxas smiled and gingerly pushed his head away.

"Devastated." He took the first flute of champagne offered to him. "But maybe not as devastated now that I'm thinking about getting wasted for  _free_."

"At midnight, they bring out the Death in the Afternoon."

"You drink  _absinthe_  at your holiday parties?" He pressed the rim of the glass against his bottom lip before quietly murmuring. "Merry fucking Christmas."

Word travelled quicker than Roxas had hoped, which was why he froze when he spotted the glimmer of gold that was his mother's too short sequent dress. Fortunately, after being reprimanded by his dad for six straight years, she'd taken to wearing dark pantyhose with her too youthful ensembles, but there was still the issue of her bending over at the wrong time. While Roxas claimed to hate his mother, he realized he was happy to see her. He wondered if it had to do with living away from home, and that thought was followed by him deciding his mother looked put together instead of outright disgusting, and that he hoped he aged as slowly as she had even without Botox.

"Roxas!" Her arms slung around Roxas' neck and she hugged him close. "It's been  _weeks_."

"Mom," Roxas said, laughing her off. "It was finals."

Axel stepped behind Roxas' mom so that Roxas could see him over her shoulder, and he parted his lips before mouthing 'damn,' because 'your mom's a stone cold fox.' Roxas gave him a dead stare that put Axel in check, and he politely cleared his throat before stepping back to Roxas' side.

"You can let go now. I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm just so  _happy_  you're here."

Roxas made sure there weren't any makeup stains on his shoulders, which was unlikely considering his mother was taller than him even without heels. He then turned to look at Axel to introduce him, parted his lips and realized he didn't know what to say. He had no idea where he was supposed to go with Axel's debut considering his mother knew they were dating, but she didn't know how complex the identity of their relationship was. Anyone else who knew them already knew Axel, and in turn, understood the abysmal uncertainty that was every abstract relationship he'd ever had.

"This is…"

Axel reached out to shake her hand before Roxas could finish. "I'm Axel Diamond; your son's boyfriend. It's nice to finally meet you after so long."

He spoke clearly, politely and self-assured in a way that radiated 'high breeding.' Axel had said 'boyfriend,' as in, 'we're together, but on a higher level than fucking and fleeing.' Roxas had to dig his nails into his palm to shed the gawking look he was giving Axel. If Axel acknowledged Roxas' look, then it'd break the illusion his mother was reveling in. Roxas was certain that was why Axel wasn't glancing his way even to reassure him with the smallest of smiles.

" _Boyfriend_." She shook his hand, her pupils practically dilating. Axel was beautiful. That one fact was non-negotiable, and though it made Roxas self-conscious almost everyday of his life, right then he was thankful for it. "I'm Roxas' mother. Call me Cyndi."

Roxas blew out the breath he'd been holding. "So…"

"So," she interrupted him. "So! How long have you two been together? You know, Roxas doesn't tell me  _anything_  anymore."

 _I never told you shit to begin with, woman._ Roxas stared at her, dumbfounded. "I don't know. I haven't been keeping track…"

"Almost six months." Axel was eloquently full of shit.

"Six months! My goodness. We've really been out of the loop here."

"Sorry," Roxas offered. "It's been a rough semester."

" _Apparently_."

She drilled Axel with every 'mom' question one might've looked up in the "Your Child Is Dating An Older Man" handbook. By the time she was done, she knew that he was twenty-four, a philosophy major already in possession of an undergrad, where his parents lived, what they did, where he lived, where he planned on going with his philosophy major, and so on and so forth. Some of the answers she pulled from him were questions even Roxas hadn't thought to ask, and the maternal cheese grating impressed Roxas. Even if Axel didn't mind, Roxas eventually found himself mortified enough to clear his throat and step forward again, abruptly reaching for Axel's arm as if to save him from stepping out in front of a car.

"Mom!" Roxas snapped, but when she jumped he softened his voice. "Mom, I'm kind of hungry. We haven't eaten yet, so I think we're going to…"

"Oh, right, right. Don't let me keep you. It was nice meeting you, Axel. I'm sure Richard is just going to  _adore_ you. When I see him, I'll let him know you two are here."

Roxas made eye contact with his mom who nodded and practically mimicked the exact same face Axel had made about her thirty minutes before. Humiliated to the point of no return, Roxas turned to Axel to apologize, but the man's brow was furrowed, and he was staring straight ahead at something or someone, reaching for another glass of champagne that rotated past on of the seemingly floating trays. Roxas was about to ask if he was okay, but Axel beat him to the punch.

"Your dad's name is  _Dick_?"

Roxas needed a shot. He needed one so badly that he held Axel's hand in front of the mass of onlookers and dragged him toward the bar where they were supposed to only be serving a handful of signature cocktails with horrible names like 'Santa's Vacation on the Beach' and 'Very Merry Punch.' Roxas wasn't having any of that. He looked the bartender dead in the face, leaned forward and placed both of his his forearms on the bar.

He spoke eerily concise. "I need a shot of whatever you have that's  _clear_."

"Can I see your I.D.?" He was blond, chiseled, clearly chosen by his mother, and looked like someone had pulled his entire body off an ironing board.

"My mother is throwing this party." Roxas ignored Axel's guffawing that came from behind him. " _That_ is my I.D."

The bartender didn't blink. "Of course."

Four shots later, Roxas knew the world would be okay. Axel had taken one 'for the hell of it,' but he wasn't bent on getting plastered just yet, which annoyed Roxas enough to momentarily cold shoulder him. His drunken train of thought allowed him to get over whatever tantrum he wanted to throw, and he coerced Axel into another shot before promising him they'd spend the night. Being out to his mother gave Roxas the 'Get Out of Jail Free' card that enabled him to somewhat hang on Axel's side. Axel didn't mind, but Axel was also too busy drinking champagne and eating to process his surroundings. Roxas was thankful for this. Everyone under the sun was eying him like a piece of meat, and it made Roxas' heart thump from the kind of jealousy that left him feeling nauseous.

"Where're your rich kid friends?" Axel asked after swallowing his third eggroll.

"Hayner, Pence and Olette should be here soon." He checked his phone again, and there was a text from Pence telling him he was picking everyone up. "You have to be nice to Hayner."

"Define  _nice_."

"Civil."

"Define  _civil_."

"Don't make a scene."

"Define  _scene_."

Axel and Roxas had a stare off, but Axel wasn't budging. Roxas rolled his eyes and was about to grab another drink when he looked through the crowd and spotted his dad. His father, who Roxas was the spitting image of in all areas except vertically, had grown out his goatee since Roxas had last seen him, and he wished he hadn't. The facial hair only added to his menacing, self-assured, Lucifer-like presence that left Roxas' nerves flaring whenever they were around one another. To add stress, behind his dad was a lingering audience of fellow powerhouses Roxas had never associated with; too many suits, too many cigars, too much compensation. While most of their sons socialized, Roxas had stubbornly made a point to avoid them at all costs. Hayner, Pence and Olette had once been a sanctuary in a realm of chaotic expectations. He wasn't sure what'd happened.

"Sonny boy..." Richard reached out and grabbed Roxas' shoulders.

Roxas dug a nail into his thumb. "Hey, Dad."

"Your mother was telling me you have someone for me to meet." He'd chosen his words carefully. Roxas stared a hole through his head, but before he could properly introduce Axel, his dad had spotted Axel himself and knew exactly what he was looking at. Roxas realized his mom must've pointed them out. "This is that friend she's been mentioning all week."

Axel was considerably less comfortable with Roxas' dad than his mom, but Roxas couldn't blame him. Axel cleared his throat, and he seemed poised. The only reason Roxas could tell he wasn't faring well was because of their history. Axel extended his hand for Roxas' dad to shake, and Roxas could tell that glint in his father's eye was dangerous when they touched hands. Axel was driving himself onto a meat hook, but he kept it together.

"Axel Diamond, sir."

"Diamond," he said, carefully chewing on that last name while he scrutinized Axel. He glanced over his shoulder at a man Roxas hadn't noticed until then. It was a mystery how Roxas hadn't noticed him considering he was strikingly tall, his face narrow yet defined with dark brows, thin lips and the kind of smoldering stare that must have killed women and men alike on a daily basis. "Sam, you got any nephews? This kid's a Diamond, too. He even looks like you from back when we were in Beta Theta Pi. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's yours."

"Got one nephew, but he's a toddler." The smoky reverberations of his tone made Roxas breathe deep. He knew that voice, but only in the bedroom. "Let me see him."

Roxas watched Axel flinch, and that never before seen response from Axel forced him to glance between the two men with a rapid back and forth cross-examination. Axel dropped the hand he'd been shaking and his dead stare bore into the other Diamond. It was quickly eclipsed by a silent rage Roxas had only seen once before when he'd embarrassed Axel with his sex toys. The difference being that this wouldn't turn into sadistic foreplay. Clearly the two knew one another, but Roxas wasn't finding the seam in their connection, causing him to grow anxious.

It sank in whom Roxas was staring at when the light caught the older man's eyes and they revealed themselves to be identical to the rich green he'd slowly grown accustomed to. Roxas parted his lips and then reached up for Axel's forearm that was immediately tugged out of his grip. In disbelief, Roxas ran a hand down his face when Axel extended his hand to the person his dad had referred to as 'Sam' and didn't break eye contact from him until Sam relented and took Axel's hand with shame that was making everyone as uncomfortable as they were confused.

" _Hi_. I don't know if you heard Mr. Eames well enough, but I'm Axel Diamond. We've met before, haven't we? If you try hard enough, then maybe you'll remember. Give it a go. I dare you." Axel shook his hand with a jerk, and Roxas had never heard Axel's voice quiver from spite before. "Of course, when you haven't seen your son in twelve years, things tend to become a little murky, so  _I understand_ if you've forgotten me." He dropped Sam's hand, and Axel reached for Roxas' waist and yanked him up to his side with a jerk. "Small fucking region, though. Are you and Mr. Eames business partners? Because I'm fucking his son right now, and if I have it my way, then I'll be fucking him for a  _very_  long time. How's that for strengthening business relations? Who would've ever fucking  _thought_ we'd all be this close again? Isn't that fucking  _wonderful_?"

"Axel…" Roxas tried pulling them away. Blood had rushed to the tops of his ears. "Axel, we should go outside and cool down. We could call a cab. I think you're drunk."

"Hold on, Roxas." Roxas anxiously rubbed at his mouth and shook his head when his dad gave him a questioning look, trying to explain he had no knowledge of the Diamond history. "You've got a son, Sam? Thought you only had daughters."

"I'm about to fucking show you the Son of Sam!" Axel blurted out. Roxas shoved him toward the backdoor right as he was about to spring, trying to ignore the collection of stares that'd built up around them. "You think you can fuck a seventeen-year-old girl, knock her up and leave her without ever having to think about it? I'm not going anywhere _, Samuel_. I'm here!"

Only when they were outside did Roxas believe he had control again. Shaking his head, he processed what'd happened and reached for his pack of menthols with a vacant stare. Occasionally, he glanced over at Axel, but Axel was standing with his back facing him, arms crossed and breathing too hard to talk. The silence between them was only interrupted by the sleepy gusts of wind picking up the dry snow between them and whirling it around like glittering afterthoughts. Roxas remembered the feelings jars and how he wished he had one right then.

"You wanna talk about it?"

Axel waited several seconds. "There's nothing to talk about."

"Sam Diamond's your dad?" Roxas asked. He needed it plain as day. The confirmation was vital. "I thought you and Xion took your adopted dad's name. You're not even blood related to Xion."

"When she was little she attached to me first, and by the time my parents took me in I liked how my name was associated with my identity, so I didn't change it. Even if it descends from  _this_  bullshit, it still sounded cool, and I was young. Xion wanted to change hers to mine, and it wasn't like Mom and Dad were going to argue with her about anything." Axel shoved a hand into his pocket and dug out his cloves. "You never asked, so I never explained. You've assumed everything about me from the start, Roxas, and that's why we've never dated. I think Xion's biological father's last name was something like Reynolds, but I'm not even sure. It doesn't matter, anyway. She's a Diamond."

"I could've sworn your parents were Diamonds." Roxas' heart fluttered from embarrassment, and then it all came flooding back. The first day they'd met.

" _What kind of last name is Diamond?"_

" _A damn good one. The one good thing my old man did was give me that name."_

Roxas covered his mouth with his hand. So many pieces he'd been unable to line up until that moment fell into place, and he leaned over his knees with a hanging head. Axel was right. He'd never bothered to ask about Axel's life, which was something that would've brought them so much closer to finding a healthy place. All that he'd done was pick at Axel about his past love life, as if that was some kind of intrinsic part of his identity, and treat his present neurological state as the heart of it all. That wasn't the core of the man, and everything he'd thought they were building together was nothing but a sham of lust and idealized obsession Roxas had anchored onto for some sense of hope.

His teeth chattered when he stood up to walk toward the edge of the in-ground pool. He was hugging himself to stay warm, and he noted the pool should've been covered by a tarp, but it wasn't the first time his mother hadn't considered the pool maintenance. His eyes grazed along the frosty surface, and he wasn't sure what he was searching for. The appeal of taking a step forward made every nerve inside his canines pulsate in agony as if being residually haunted by every time he'd bit into an ice cube. That split second when ice is wedged between molars, still trying to melt. It made him shake his head and pant out hot breaths.

He could've sworn he saw something floating beneath the ice, but he turned to look at Axel who was also gazing down into the pool. "Axel, I'm sorry."

"You're not the one who fucked my mother and denied her right to assistance because she was apparently too poor to fertilize your sperm." Axel kicked at one of the barren pool chairs that looked like a feeble skeleton without its cushions. "It's not on you."

"That's not what I'm apologizing for." Roxas rubbed the side of his head and gestured at him with the hand holding his cigarette. "I'm apologizing for never asking you about  _anything_. I should've known that. I could've figured that out if I'd just used my fucking brain."

"No. You couldn't have." Axel's words were surprisingly terse. "You've never been a part of this world, but at the same time you've never been a part of mine. You'd never even heard that last name until you met me. Everything you do is devoid of depth perception, and that was what made you so goddamn intriguing at first. You haven't had the life experience to understand much of anything from the kind of angle I come from, but you also hate it here enough not to get it either. You've never had the reason to probe anything except yourself, and you know, that was okay for a while."

" _Was_ ," Roxas repeated.

"It's fine," he whispered against the filter of the cigarillo. He waited, expecting Roxas to argue, but Roxas didn't. "In the morning it'll be more than fine again."

"Should we go home?"

"Where's home?"

 _Good question_. "Wherever you want it to be."

* * *

 They avoided his parents, the growing party, even Roxas' friends, and made it back to the garage by looping around the house. Roxas couldn't help but blame himself. Everything about his existence was rotten when it came to Axel. He was the fermenting apple at the bottom of the bag, ready to spill open and reveal his blackening and inedible interior. There was the idea that adding a rotten apple to a batch of applesauce made it sweeter, but Roxas was nothing but pulsations of miserable miasma that made breathing impossible for anyone who experienced him.

Axel, being the most sober, drove them home. Home was the vacant parking lot of a Chuck E. Cheese that'd shutdown in the early 2000s and never been replaced with anything else. The pair silently stared straight ahead while music trilled from the speakers, filling the emptiness between them that was growing wider and wider. The pressure was willful enough to bring tears to Roxas' eyes, but he was also drunk and in a self-deprecating mood. Anything from then on could've triggered him to begin slamming his hands on the dash in an enraged frenzy, ready to shove his fingers down his throat like a pissed off toddler in need of some kind of immediate attention.

"You called me your boyfriend," Roxas said. "Mom believed you. I'm not surprised, though. You're  _that_  kind of person."

"I'm glad you think so." Axel rubbed his jaw. He then looked over at him, and Roxas saw his unnecessary remorse. "I'm sorry for giving your old man every reason to think I'm trailer trash. I thought I was doing well. I tried a lot harder than I want to admit."

Roxas waved him off. "He would've hated you anyway."

They sat in another agonizing silence. "This is going to be so hard on the children."

He snorted and then tilted his head back. He sighed with a finalizing huff. "Do you still want to run away with me? Even after all of this? Even knowing we're a pedestrian cliché?"

Axel lifted his hand and Roxas lifted his, mirroring Axel's actions. They met halfway between their persons and meshed their palms together, and for a while they didn't move from that position. With a sad frown, Roxas trailed a finger down the center of Axel's palm only to line them back up so that he could compare their hands' sizes. Axel laced their fingers and tugged Roxas up to him. "Only if you believe me when I say I love you."

He wrapped his arms around Axel's neck and trailed a hand back toward the side of his face to run his thumb along the corner of his mouth. "You're going to save my life."

"You've already saved mine."

"How do you always know what to say?"

"Right now  _really_  isn't the time to lie to me."

Axel managed to bring Roxas closer, and the delirium of being infatuated was why Roxas had the nerve to climb onto Axel's lap who'd already pushed the seat back as far as it would go. Roxas cupped the sides of Axel's face, and he believed that they were going to run away. Deep in the darkest recesses of his heart something told him all things were possible if he truly believed, and he believed in them. He believed that something, something in the world of Axel Diamond would give, and they'd be able to access an easy life together. Roxas would clean out his savings, they would find somewhere to start anew, Axel might teach philosophy as an adjunct and they'd have a new life together, a next life. Something so crystalline and perfect the thought alone made Roxas weep.

Snow continued to drift toward the wet pavement that was beginning to freeze. The interior was warm from both the heater and the presence of two bodies that seemed impossible to separate. Roxas watched as Axel sucked on the tips of the fingers he'd attempted to ghost across his lips, and he couldn't resist the urge to lean forward and replace the digits with his mouth.

They decided to call it a night at Axel's house where, inconveniently enough, Demyx had thrown his own party in response to Axel and Roxas being 'Richie Rich assholes' without them. People were huddled outside, smoking like dirty chimneys, and Roxas watched Axel visibly brace himself for the oncoming crowd who idealized him as much as he once had. Axel was a poignant part of the household's Trinitarian reputation, and sometimes Roxas forgot he existed beyond the sphere of their romantic entanglement. Yells for Axel greeted them when they stepped out of the Mercedes, and even though Roxas had toned himself down, he was still recognized as the 'loaded lay.'

Roxas sucked on his bottom lip that was chapped enough to split and bleed if he smiled too wide. "I'm going to bed. Should I feed Putrid?"

Axel was distracted by one of Kairi's friends who held onto his bicep while animatedly waving her cigarette as she spoke. The touch, though minor, made his throat spasm from jealousy. Everyone wanted Axel, and no matter how superior he tried to feel knowing he'd become the main part of his life there was an unspoken availability about him that let the world feel as if it could have him. Roxas rubbed his brow and walked away from Axel's side. He'd never responded about Putrid, and he suddenly decided he didn't want to go to bed. His buzz was good, Demyx was surely there, which meant he'd have someone to depend on for social interaction.

"Roxas!" Demyx, like an all-knowing God, reached out from the kitchen and grasped onto his bicep, tugging him up to his side and into a circle of people. "Roxas, do you know Riku?"

Roxas stared at the man Demyx was suddenly gesturing at. His brow crinkled. "Riku Boxier."

"Roxas Eames," Riku said, raising his beer. "Long time, no see."

A senior when Roxas had been a sophomore, Riku was the third of four brothers belonging to Roman enterprises; a company that specialized in the distribution of imported cigars. He'd disappeared as soon as he'd graduated, and rumors about him circulated up until Roxas himself became a senior. Being a baby brother in the family of his size gave him more wiggle room than most, and along with his friends, he had accepted the idea that Riku had gone sailing in the Mediterranean.

"You two know each other?" Demyx excitedly looked back and forth between the two. "Riku just got back from studying abroad, and he was telling us all about his Italian exploits…"

"We went to a couple high school parties together," Riku explained, and Roxas pushed back his bangs with an uncomfortable swallow. "What've you been up to since I bounced?"

"College," Roxas answered. He realized he was drinking in Riku's appearance; black bomber jacket, bleached and dyed silver hair messily tugged back into a ponytail, eyes sharp as flint. "That's about where it ends. No _Italy_ or really much of anything right now."

"Seeing anyone?" He offered Roxas a cigarette, and Roxas could tell he was being rude because he felt entitled to be. Riku had always demanded precedence.

"Sort of," Roxas said, and he took the offered cigarette, letting Riku light it for him. Demyx rolled his eyes to the side, and Roxas rethought his answer. "Yeah. I am."

"It's true, then." Riku looked to Xigbar who was nursing his flask. "Axel Diamond and Roxas Eames, then. This city couldn't get any smaller."

"They've been a nightmare since summer," Xigbar murmured.

"I'm glad you're clarifying." Riku quirked an eyebrow and took a drag. "Because I could've sworn Kairi was telling me she's been sleeping with him for a while now."

"She's a cunt," Roxas snapped, crossing his arm over his chest. Demyx breathed out an extended ' _ooo_ ,' and only stopped when Roxas cut him a look. "You know, I fucked her."

"We dated for a while," Riku's voice sharpened. "She's a good girl."

"Maybe for some, but she's not a good lay." He wished his mouth would stop running because before he'd found out Axel was also sleeping with her, he'd liked Kairi more than most.

Arms looped around Roxas' waist from behind, and he felt a pair of lips press against his temple and then drift to his earlobe. Roxas reached up for the side of Axel's head who was then holding a bottle of Platinum, and he snorted when he was swayed. He then took the beer from Axel, pointedly taking a swig from the neck and rolling his lips together as he swallowed it down.

"I'm glad you didn't go to bed," Axel whispered into his ear, and Roxas noticed how Riku and Axel were staring one another down. Axel righted himself and told Roxas to keep the beer, which Roxas gladly did with a chug. "It's been a while, Riku. How were the wine and olives?"

"Agreeable." Riku slyly looked at Roxas. "How'd  _this_ happen?"

"I tried to jump off a bridge, and Roxas stopped me."

Roxas nearly choked, but Riku beat him to it. "Always full of metaphors."

"Always," Axel agreed.

"Did you know Roxas and I went to high school together?" Riku's tone was too implicit for Roxas' liking. "I've known him for years."

"An exaggeration," Roxas corrected. "We went to like three parties together and then you disappeared for three years. Could've called. Could've written a letter. A post card would've been nice of you. Leaving people high and dry isn't mysterious. It makes you an asshole."

"I had my reasons."

"Daddy didn't love you enough?" Roxas blurted it out before he could stop himself, and Demyx inhaled through clenched teeth. "It happens to the best of us."

Axel cackled. " _Nice_."

"It's fine," Riku assured Demyx who was pale. "But that would explain why you were so adamant about calling me daddy when I jerked you off."

Roxas lunged, and Axel let him.


End file.
